A letter purportedly shared by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is going viral to claim that BJP President J.P. Nadda is appointing political strategist Prashant Kishor as BJP’s “National Chief Spokesperson”.
Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here. We also received a query about this on our WhatsApp tipline.
The letter going viral about Kishor being elected as BJP’s National Spokesperson is fake. We also contacted BJP’s National General Secretary Arun Singh’s office who confirmed this.
How did we find out?
We first checked the social media accounts of the BJP, the party’s National General Secretary Arun Singh, Kishor, and J.P. Nadda for an update on this, but didn’t find anything.
Then we performed a reverse image search on the viral image on Google, which threw up results of a post by ANI shared on X. This was shared on 25 September, 2023, and it completely matched with the viral letter except for the first line.
The original letter stated, “BJP National President Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda has appointed Shri Benjamin Yepthomi as State President of Nagaland, BJP.”
Benjamin Yepthomi appointed as the president of BJP Nagaland pic.twitter.com/adXX7zijrn
— ANI (@ANI) September 25, 2023
Arun Singh’s signature was also included in both letters.
We contacted Singh’s office, which confirmed to us that this letter is fake and no such development has taken place.
Conclusion
A fake letter is going viral to claim that BJP President Nadda is appointing Prashant Kishor as BJP’s National Chief Spokesperson.
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 staff.
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