Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made a mockery of himself after he shared a fake video on his Twitter page. Without taking the name of the BJP, he retweeted a video and wrote, "The politics of Hindutva means hooliganism.”
The video, originally shared by a scribe, shows a young man threatening a senior citizen, believed to be a Congress supporter, who favoured voting against the Bharatiya Janata Party. The young man accosts the elderly man, identified as Bhupendra Bhadauriya, who asks the former why he should support the saffron party.
However, it was later reported that the video was fake. The two persons in the video are relatives. The friendly banter of the uncle-nephew duo went viral on social media and caught Rahul's attention who saw an opportunity in the video to corner the BJP over Hindutva in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh.
The young man in the video is said to be a BJP councillor, Raghavendra Mishra, from Govind Nagar in Kanpur.
"We were merely joking as to why I should join the BJP," the senior citizen told India TV, adding that he is the uncle of Raghavendra.
The Kanpur Police also took cognizance of the incident and later said that the video was fake. Kanpur ACP Brajnarayan Singh said that Raghavendra and Bhupendra live in the same colony.
Notably, Rahul has been relentlessly attacking the BJP and RSS over the issue of Hindutva for several months in the run-up to the Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Polling in the country's most populous state will take place in seven-phase between February 10 and March 7. Counting is slated for March 10.
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