The Boom Fact Check: A graphic claiming to be a cartoon advertisement of dairy company Amul has gone viral amid Lok Sabha elections 2024. Voting is being encouraged in this. But during investigation it was found that this advertisement has not been issued by Amul. This is a completely fake advertisement.
Boom’s Fact Check Team (boomlive.in) In its investigation, it was found that this graphic is fake. The graphic has some text written along with the picture of the Amul girl, “Don’t give or don’t give, take the right decision. Your vote is invaluable.” Former Puducherry Governor Kiran Bedi has shared this graphic with the handle ‘X’, tagging the Election Commission and Amul.
While sharing this advertisement, writer and journalist Shobha De wrote, ‘Brilliant!!’
While fact checking this advertisement, BOOM found that this advertisement was not issued by Amul. Amul has issued a denial on this and has said that it will take legal action against the maker of the advertisement. There is no Amul logo in the viral graphic and the image of the Amul girl has also been cropped. To know the real story of the ad, BOOM’s team searched Google with keywords related to the Amul cartoon ad.
Amul releases its cartoon advertisements on the section named ‘Amul Hits’. Here, by clicking on ‘Amul Hits of the Year 2024’, this year’s advertisements can be seen.
Three cartoons related to 2024 Lok Sabha elections were found in this section. Amul had issued advertisements appealing for voting before each phase. The first advertisement was released on 18 April, the second on 25 April and the third advertisement on 6 May.
After this, Amul’s official X handle @Amul_Coop was searched. On May 6, 2024, Amul issued a clarification calling it fake. Amul wrote in its message, “A fake message from Amul Girl is being shared on WhatsApp and social media. In this message, the name of the creator of the fake advertisement has been mentioned as PK Anil, against whom Amul will take legal action.”
(This story was originally published by boomlive.in, Fact Check Desk, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline/excerpt/opening introduction para this story has not been edited by News18india.com staff)
Tags: Amul, Fact Check, fake news, Loksabha Elections
FIRST PUBLISHED: May 11, 2024, 18:36 IST