On October 23, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit the grounds in Bihar campaigning for the three-phase elections which begin on October 28. Ahead of Rahul Gandhi's rally in Bihar, a post went viral on social media platforms claiming that the Bihar government has not allowed Rahul Gandhi's helicopter to land in Bihar.

A user named Aman Arora shared an image showing Rahul with "Permission to land Rahul Gandhi's helicopter in Bihar was not provided. Nitish Kumar- BJP government got scared even before Rahul Gandhi's rally in Bihar" written on it. 

This post has been reshared over 120 times at the time of writing this article. 

When we checked on Facebook, we found that a number of other users are sharing this post. 

This post is also being shared on Twitter with the same claim. 

The truth behind the claim 

In our investigation, we found this claim to be false. 

The official Facebook handle of the Congress Bihar shared information about Rahul Gandhi's rally in Bihar. According to this post on October 23, Rahul Gandhi would start his rally in Bihar and during this time he will address the election rally in Hisua (Nawada) at 12 PM and Kahalgaon (Bhagalpur) at 3 pm.

A lot of confusion about his helicopter landing arose when the media reported that the Bihar government has not allowed his helicopter to land in Purnia. Times of India reported that the Bihar government has denied permission for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s chopper to land in Purnia.

However, it was later made clear that no rally was scheduled to happen in Purnia. According to the report published on news18.com, Purnia DM informed that no rally was scheduled in Purnia, and only the transit program was scheduled in Purnia where Rahul Gandhi would change his helicopter and then join the rally in Kahalgaon. The report further added that the route has been diverted as there is maintenance work taking place at Purnia's Airport runway and the 5-minute stoppage in Purnia will now happen at another airport.

Purina DM Rahul Kumar later took to Twitter to dismiss this claim and wrote, "#FactCheck regarding ‘permission denial’:- 1. The transit program was scheduled for 23rd Oct at Purnia Airforce Station. 2. We started preparations as per the security protocol and the ASL meeting was also completed. 3. On the 22nd evening, we were informed about the ‘Revised’ tour program which didn’t include Purnea as transit.."

He further added,  "4. AF station doesn’t come under the jurisdiction of district administration. 5. Permission for landing was neither required from administration nor any application was submitted for the same, hence no question of denying."

Hence, the claim that Rahul Gandhi's helicopter was denied permission to land in Bihar during rallied ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections is false. His landing route was diverted only due to technical reasons.