A video of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) chief Vaiyapuri Gopalsamy, also known as Vaiko, is going viral on social media with different political parties and news outlets shared clipped versions of the video to spread misleading narrative.
Who did what?
Indian news agency ANI shared a 10-second clip from the video where Vaiko says, “Congress betrayed Tamil Nadu on every front at the time.”
Union minister Piyush Goyal, too, reposted ANI‘s post and urged the people of Tamil Nadu to give it a listen.
Several media outlets like Hindustan Times, TV9 Bharatvarsh, News Nine and News18 shared this quote of Vaiko as reported by ANI.
On the other hand, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate shared the later half of the same video where Vaiko is speaking against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In her post on X, she quoted Vaiko from the video: “These 10 years were a testing time for Narendra Modi. He is a traitor. He betrayed Tamil Nadu, he betrayed India, he betrayed Sri Lanka.”
What’s the problem with these videos?
The truth is that Vaiko’s statements have been clipped and are being spread by party members and media outlets with incomplete context.
We found Tamil news channel Sun News‘ logo on one of the clipped videos and with a relevant keyword search, we came across Vaiko’s full video.
This 37-second clip shows Vaiko’s entire statement where he says: “Congress betrayed Tamil Nadu in every front at the time. After that, these 10 years, this was a testing time for Narendra Modi. He is a traitor, he betrayed Tamil Nadu, he betrayed India, he betrayed Sri Lanka, this Narendra Modi,” he said.
கச்சத்தீவு விவகாரத்தில் நம்பிக்கை துரோகம் செய்துள்ளார் மோடி – மதிமுக பொதுச் செயலாளர் வைகோ விமர்சனம்#SunNews | #Elections2024 | #Vaiko | #Modi pic.twitter.com/WwQHsnmjDx
— Sun News (@sunnewstamil) April 3, 2024
What’s the ongoing issue with this island?
On 31 March, PM Modi raised a controversial matter just a few weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu.
He accused the Congress party and its INDIA bloc partner, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), of relinquishing the fishing island of Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka in 1974.
Just like ANI and Goyal did not carry the part of Vaiko’s statement where he speaks against PM Modi, Shrinate skipped the part where he speaks against the Congress.
To conclude, Vaiko spoke against both the Congress and PM Modi, but people shared clipped versions to attack each other.
This story was originally published by The Quint as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint.
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