Fact Check: Congress letter on ‘dividing Hindus in Karnataka’ is fake

Congress also shared a video clarifying that the letter circulating on social media is fake and that legal action will be taken against those who produced and published it.

Credit: The Quint

A letter purportedly issued by Karnataka Congress leader MB Patil to former Congress President Sonia Gandhi is going viral on social media.

The letter states that the Congress is planning to “divide the Hindus and unite the Muslims and Christians” to win the Assembly elections in 2018 with the help of Global Christian Council and World Islamic Organisation.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

An archive can be seen here.

This was also shared by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Karnataka page on X (formerly Twitter) in 2019.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

An archive can be seen here.

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

What’s the truth?: The letter, which went viral in 2018 too, is fake. And organisations Global Christian Council and World Islamic organisation, mentioned in the letter, do not exist.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a relevant keyword search on Google using the names of two organisations mentioned in the letter.

• However, we could not find anything on Global Christian Council and World Islamic organisation.
• The letter was shared earlier as well in 2018 by Postcard news but they later deleted the article.
• Mahesh Vikram Hegde, co-founder Postcard News was arrested 24 April 2018 in Karnataka on charges of spreading fake news.
• Next, we performed a keyword search on X using ‘fake news Postcard Karnataka’ and this led us to a post made by the official account of Congress Karnataka.
• This was a reply to BJP’s post and was shared on 16 April 2019.
• It clearly stated that this letter was fake.

Congress also shared a video that included Patil’s statement clarifying that this letter is fake and that legal action will be taken against those who produced and published it.

Conclusion: A fake letter is going viral claiming that Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and MB Patil had discussed dividing the Hindus in Karnataka to win the elections.

This story was originally published by The Quint as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.