Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its list of candidates for the upcoming Jharkhand Assembly elections. Former chief minister Babulal Marandi and other leaders such as Champai Soren and Sita Soren are among the 66 candidates on the list.
The election contest is drawing significant attention as Champai Soren, formerly a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader who joined the BJP in August 2024 in Ranchi, is set to run from the Saraikella seat.
Amid the BJP’s election campaign, a short clip has gone viral on social media. It claims to show Union Home Minister Amit Shah insulting Champai Soren at a public meeting by not addressing him in a respectful manner.
An X user shared the video, captioning it, “Such an insult! Just because they are tribals. Amit Shah, why are you irritated with them?” (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)
Similar posts have also been shared here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is edited.
Through a reverse image search, we found a report from Republic World, published on 3 November, and titled ‘“Aage Aao…”: Amit Shah Motivates Babulal Marandi, Champai Soren To Come Forward On Stage’
In the video, similar to the viral clip, Shah can be seen encouraging Babulal Marandi and Champai Soren to step forward and wave to the crowd. However, unlike the claim, he respectfully addresses both leaders as ‘Champaiji’ and ‘Babulalji’. The video footage shows the event location as East Singhbhum, Jharkhand.
We also found the extended, unedited 23-minute video of the public meeting posted by Live 7 Bharat on 3 November, 2024.
In this video, around the 22:20-minute mark, the same viral clip appears in full showing Shah calling both leaders in a respectable way. Throughout the video, the home minister can be seen acknowledging the leaders’ presence on stage and asking people to support them.
News reports from the rally in East Singhbhum district, covered by various media outlets like Inside Jharkhand and Pratidin Time, highlighted Amit Shah’s strong criticism of chief minister Hemant Soren.
Shah accused Soren of allocating tribal land to outsiders and pledged to introduce strict legislation to prevent this.
The election in Jharkhand is set to take place in two phases, on 13 November and 20 November, with counting scheduled for 23 November. The rally seen in the video was part of the ongoing election campaign.
Hence, the viral claim that Amit Shah insulted Champai Soren at a public meeting by not addressing him in a respectful way is false.
This story was originally published by NewsMeter as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.
Also read: Fact Check: Hemant Soren didn’t promise free shrouds before Jharkhand polls. It’s a 2021 video