Is this a photo of Gujarat minister prostrating on the feet of a voter?

Hyderabad: A photo of a man prostrating on the feet of an old woman has gone viral on social media. It is being claimed that the man in the photo is BJP leader and Gujarat education minister Jitu Vaghani who is asking for votes in the upcoming Gujarat Assembly election.

Gujarat will vote for 182 Assembly seats in two phases on 1 and 5 December. The votes will be counted on 8 December, and the results will be declared the same day.

A Facebook user shared the image and wrote, "He is Jitu Vaghani, the Gujarat education minister. If they had done anything in the last 27 years, they would have not faced this today." (Translated)

Several other Facebook and Twitter users shared the photo and made similar claims. (Click here here, here and here to see posts. )

Fact Check

NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found the same photo in an article from 2020 by OneIndia. It said ahead of the 2020 Delhi Assembly election, Sanjay Singh, the BJP candidate from West Delhi's Vikaspuri Assembly constituency, was campaigning uniquely. He was seen lying at the feet of the people.

We also found a video report published by OneIndia in 2020. The video shows Sanjay Singh prostrating at the feet of the people. The description said that as the dates of the Delhi Assembly elections in 2020 were getting closer, BJP candidate Sanjay Singh was asking for votes by rolling on people's feet.

The same viral photo was also tweeted on 6 February 2020 by a user associated with the Congress party. He, too, mentioned that the man seen in the photograph is Sanjay Singh, the BJP candidate for West Delhi's Vikaspuri.

Finally, we searched about Sanjay Singh and found that he had lost the 2020 elections to Mahinder Yadav of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

It is evident that the viral photo is not of Gujarat education minister Jitu Vaghani but of another BJP leader Sanjay Singh from Delhi. Hence, the claim is false.