Republic uses unrelated image of Istanbul Congress Center as Congress party’s Turkey office, stirs political storm

On a prime-time show on May 15, Republic editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, who was also hosting the show,  claimed that the Indian National Congress (INC) had a registered office in Turkey. In the segment, he showed an image of the Istanbul Congress Center, calling it the registered INC office. Referring to the Gandhis, Goswami said “the family” had compromised national interests repeatedly.

Expressing concerns over Congress’s perceived alignment with Turkey in light of recent geopolitical developments, especially since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan openly supported Pakistan, Goswami called it an issue of national integrity. “A friend of the enemy is an enemy,” he said, urging viewers to boycott the Congress party and clamouring for a ban.

 

Calls to boycott Turkey have been on the rise in India after the recent conflict with Pakistan. The Indian armed forces explicitly said that Pakistan used weaponry supplied by China and Turkey to target military posts and civilian habitations in the recent conflict. Additionally, after India launched Operation Sindoor targeting terror bases in Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pahalgam massacre, where 26 civilians were shot dead, Turkey called the strikes “provocative”. Since then, Indians have cancelled trips en masse, travel businesses have stopped their offerings and institutions such as Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT-Bombay and Jamia Millia Islamia have suspended their partnerships with Turkish universities.

Coming back to the Congress and their Turkey office, BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya shared the Republic segment on May 17, asking Rahul Gandhi why it needed to make this “move.” (Archive)

Social media user Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree), shared the same video on X and questioned why the Congress felt the need to have an office there when only 300 Indians were living there. He added, “Is Erdogan the new Caliph of Congress, orchestrating its blatant Islamization?” (archive)

Another X user, Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues), also shared the same video wondering why the party had an office in that country. (archive)

Note that @JaipurDialogues has been fact checked by Alt News several times for amplifying misinformation.

Fact Check

The building shown in the Republic segment, which has been referred to as the registered office of the Indian National Congress in Turkey, is actually the Istanbul Congress Center. It is a convention centre located in the Harbiye neighbourhood of Sisli district in Istanbul, Turkey. It was inaugurated on October 17, 2009, and is owned by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

This Congress has nothing to do with the Indian National Congress, which is a political party.

However, in November 2019, the Indian National Congress had announced that it planned to establish an overseas office in Istanbul. According to the party’s statement, Mohammad Yusuf Khan was appointed to lead the Indian Overseas Congress (IOC) in Turkey. But since the announcement, there have been no updates on whether an actual office was set up because the IOC website mentions the countries where it has a presence, where Turkey is not featured.

The Indian Overseas Congress functions as a global network of Congress supporters and advocates, working to promote the party’s ideology and interests abroad. Sam Pitroda is the chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress. But this is nothing unusual because several parties do have units or centres overseas.

Malviya’s X post, in this context, seems unusual because even the BJP has a units outside of India, including in Turkey. The Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) has established centres in the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands and other countries. Several news reports and articles indicate OFBJP has a presence in Turkey. These reports named a Dipankar Ganguly as the convenor from Turkey.

In August 2018, Vijay Jolly, then senior BJP leader and the global convener of OFBJP had even met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara and offered him a scarf with the BJP’s lotus symbol.

On May 20, news channel Republic issued a correction, admitting they used the wrong image to depict the Congress office in Turkey in their news segment.

To sum up, the picture of the building that many called a Congress office in Istanbul is actually the Istanbul Convention Center, a property owned by a municipal body in Turkey. It is unrelated to the Congress party. And while the Congress did announce plans of having an office in Turkey in 2019, no news reports or information on their website corroborate that they actually established one. Also, having an international presence is not unusual for political parties to garner support and the BJP too has an overseas wing in Turkey.

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