By: Praveen Kumar
May 15 2023
No, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif did not thank Karnataka for electing Congress in the assembly polls
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
Sharif never tweeted thanking Karnataka voters. A fabricated screenshot is being used to make this claim.
Claim ID 1e398ffe
Context
The 2023 Karnataka state elections were held on May 10 and the results were announced on May 13. The Indian National Congress won 135 seats out of 224, followed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which secured 66 seats. After the election results were announced, a purported screenshot of a tweet by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif started circulating on social media. The screenshot contains a tweet in Urdu, whose English translation reads, “I would like to heartily thank the people of Karnataka for electing Congress, I hope that Congress along with our SDPI will work for the strengthening of Islam in India and the sovereignty of Karnataka!”
The tweet was shared by many on social media, including BJP Ludhiana Rural's Twitter account. However, no such tweet was posted by Sharif.
In Fact
We noted that the Twitter account seen in the screenshot (@CMShehbaz) and the profile picture match Sharif's official account. However, we checked his official Twitter account and found no such tweet around May 13, 2023. The only three tweets he posted on that date were about Pakistan political affairs, unrelated to the Karnataka elections.
We also searched for any tweet he might have made using “Karnataka” and found no posts. The only time he used “Congress” in one of his tweets was on November 1, 2022, talking about being invited to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.
We found no evidence of such a tweet while looking at an archive of his Twitter account on May 14. The analytics data for his Twitter account by the analytics tool Social Blade also shows that he only posted three tweets on May 13.
The Twitter bio of @N0rbertElekes, the account which posted the purported screenshot, says it is a parody account. We found no news reports of Sharif making such a statement. Based on these observations, it is clear that this is a fabricated screenshot with a religious connotation.
The Verdict
A fabricated screenshot is being used to claim Pakistan prime minister thanked the people of Karnataka for electing Congress in the 2023 assembly elections. Sharif has not tweeted or publicly made such a statement. Therefore, we have marked this claim false.