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Image Credit: Twitter, Facebook/Yogi Adityanath, Wikimedia/Pinarayi Vijayan
This Man Driving Kerala CM Is Lulu Chairman's Chauffeur? No, UAE Minister, Al Zeyoudi Misidentified As A Driver
Uttar Pradesh, 22 July 2022 12:14 PM GMT
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We found that the person identified as a chauffeur by netizens in the first image is actually a UAE minister. Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade, who had inaugurated the LuLu Mall in Trivandrum alongwith Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan.
Two images showing CM Yogi Adityanath and Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan have gone viral across social media. The images are viral following the namaz controversy at LuLu Mall in Lucknow.
Four persons were arrested for offering religious prayers in LuLu Mall after a video of around eight people offering namaz on the mall's first floor went viral. In a recent development, the arrested people were identified by the Lucknow Police as belonging to the Muslim community. Read our report on the incident here.
Claim:
A set of two images has gone viral across social media. The first image shows a person resembling Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan sitting in a car marked 'LuLu Mall'. He sits beside another person driving the car. A few more people can be seen sitting in the car.
The second image shows a person resembling CM Yogi Adityanath sitting in a car marked 'LuLu Mall'. He sits beside a person driving the car who can be seen in the first image as well.
Netizens have claimed that in the first image, Yusuff Ali made CM Pinarayi sit with his chauffeur while he sat behind. Meanwhile, in the second image, Yusuff Ali became the chauffeur himself and drove CM Yogi around.
It is being widely shared on Facebook and Twitter with a similar claim.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian fact check team verified the viral claim and found it to be false. We found that the person identified as a chauffeur by netizens in the first image is actually a UAE minister.
Image 1:
We conducted a reverse image search on the first image and came across this article published by Madhyamam, a Malayalam newspaper. The article published on 17th December 2021, carries details about CM Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurating Lulu Mall in Trivandrum. The report mentions that several political leaders attended the inaugration including UAE Foreign Trade Minister Dr Thani Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Abdulrahman Al Banna, MP Shashi Tharoor, BJP State President K Surendran, and MA Yusuff Ali, among others.
We came across an article by The Hindu published on 16th December 2021. The report identifies the people in the image as Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Ahmed Abdulrahman Al Banna, the UAE Ambassador to India, and Yusuff Ali M.A., the International chairman and managing director of LuLu Group.
MP Shashi Tharoor and political leaders Jose K Mani and Kadakampally Surendran, were seated in the back of the car.
Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, is the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Trade. As per the UAE Ministry of Economy website, he was appointed the UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade in July 2020. "He has been assigned a file to attract the best talents and competencies to serve the strategic direction of the UAE." the website mentions.
Al-Zeyoudi also oversees the development of non-oil foreign trade sectors and the expansion of global partnerships, as per the UAE Ministry of Economy website.
Taking a cue from these reports, we conducted another keyword search for more images from the inauguration. We came across images from news portal, Kerala showing Al-Zeyoudi with CM Vijayan along with others seen in the viral image.
We also came across this Malyalam India Today report published on 16th December 2021. The report contained more images which showed Al-Zeyoudi with CM Vijayan. In one image, he can be seen cutting the ribbon with CM Vijayan.
We then conducted a keyword search on Pinarayi Vijayan's official Twitter handle within the December 2021 period. Then, we came across this tweet published on December 16, 2021. In the image, CM Vijayan can be seen sitting with Al Zeyoudi, both wearing the same outfits as seen in the viral images.
In our Fact Check, we also came across this tweet by Shashi Tharoor published on December 16, 2021. In the tweet, Tharoor identifies the person driving the cart as Al Zeyoudi and mentions the Kerala CM Vijayan as well.
Image 2:
We conducted a reverse image search on the second viral image. This led us to this report by Zee Business published on July 14, 2022. The report talks about the inauguration of LuLu Mall in Lucknow on July 10, 2022. The ZeeBiz report also mentions that Yussuf Ali M.A was driving CM Yogi Adityanath around as seen in the image. The report talks about the inauguration of LuLu Mall in Lucknow on July 10, 2022. .
We also came across a report by Onmanorama published on July 11, 2022. The report mentions that CM Yogi Adityanath took a round of the mall along with Lulu Group chairman Yusuff Ali MA.
Conclusion:
In our Fact Check, we found that the person identified as a chauffeur by netizens in the first image is actually a UAE minister. Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Trade, who had inaugurated the LuLu Mall in Trivandrum alongwith Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan. On that occasion in December 2021, he had driven around CM Vijayan and others in a tour of the mall.
The second image shows the inauguration of LuLu Mall in Lucknow on July 10, 2022, where CM Yogi Adityanath took a round of the mall along with Lulu Group chairman Yusuff Ali MA. Thus, we can conclude that Zeyoudi was mistaken to be a chauffeur to spread a misleading claim.
If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.
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