New Delhi (Anushka Pandey/Abhinav Gupta): Several social media users have shared a video of Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav in which he can be heard urging the public not to vote for the Congress, calling it a ‘chalu’ (manipulative) party. In its investigation, the PTI Fact Check Desk found that an old and unrelated video of Yadav was shared as recent on social media with the misleading claim.
SP is part of the INDIA bloc, an alliance of opposition parties, contesting against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Claim
On 11 April, a Facebook user shared the video of the SP chief in which he is heard asking the public to not vote for the Congress.
The caption of the post read, “हे प्रभु ये क्या हो गया #bjp #inc #reels #reelsinstagram #trendingreels #boy #friends #picoftheday #funny #comedy”.
An English translation of the post read, “Oh Lord what has happened #bjp #inc #reels #reelsinstagram #trendingreels #boy #friends #picoftheday #funny #comedy”
An English translation of the text on the video read: “Don’t vote for Congress, it is a manipulative party”.
Here is the link and archive link and below is a screenshot of the same.
Investigation
Starting the investigation, the Desk ran the video through InVid Tool Search and found a few keyframes. On running one of the keyframes through Google Lens, we found multiple posts with the same video and similar claims.
Three such posts can be viewed here, here and here, and their archived versions can be seen here, here and here, respectively.
Two such X posts can be viewed here and here and archive links can be viewed here and here, respectively.
On further scanning the search results, the Desk came across a YouTube video uploaded by the official channel of Economic times on 5 November, 2023.
The description of the video — same as the one shared on social media — read, “Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday continued his spate of attacks on the Congress amid tension between the INDIA bloc partners over seat distribution in Madhya Pradesh, as he called the latter a “chalu” (cheat) party.”
Here is the link and below is a screenshot of the same.
Taking a cue from this, the Desk conducted a customised search on Google and found a report by The Times of India published on 6 November, 2023.
The title of the report read, “Congress ‘chalu’ party, don’t vote for them: Akhilesh Yadav in Madhya Pradesh”.
According to the report, Akhilesh, while addressing a rally in Madhya Pradesh, had called Congress a cunning party and accused it of betrayal after Congress denied seats to his party in Madhya Pradesh, saying that the INDIA bloc was meant for national politics, not regional elections.
Here is the link to the report, and below is a screenshot of the same:
Subsequently, the Desk concluded that an old and unrelated video of SP chief was shared as recent on social media with false claims.
This story was originally published by PTI News 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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