Fact Check: BJP's Manoj Tiwari didn't concede defeat to Congress' Kanhaiya Kumar, cropped video viral
A clip featuring Manoj Tiwari is going viral on social media with a claim that he has conceded defeat to Congress candidate Kanhaiya Kumar in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Fact Check by NewsMobile: Manoj Tiwari, the incumbent Member of Parliament, is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from the North-East Delhi constituency. The voting in this constituency took place on May 25. Tiwari's main opponent in this election is Kanhaiya Kumar, a Congress leader and former president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union, among other candidates.
Amidst this, a video is going viral on social media platforms, claiming that Manoj Tiwari has accepted his defeat to the Congress candidate. The clip, lasting 11 seconds, features Tiwari speaking from a moving car, saying, "Look, I was aware of my defeat, but the sad thing was that I had been winning for a long time, and then I felt like I was about to lose." The accompanying text overlay in Hindi translates to "Manoj Tiwari has accepted his defeat."
The Facebook post reads: “The dancer accepted defeat even before the elections, how will he cross 400 like this? Brother Kanhaiya Kumar is the star” (roughly translated from Hindi).
The above post can be seen here. (Archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the viral post, and found it to be false.
Noticing the ‘Jist’ watermark in the viral video, the NM team tracked down its extended version on the Jist YouTube channel, uploaded on March 31, 2024, with the title: “I Spent A Day With Manoj Tiwari To Discuss Pyar, Cricket, Rahul Gandhi, Modi & Kejriwal | Part-1.” The segment used in the viral clip appears between the 34:04 and 34:14 timestamps.
In the video, Tiwari can be seen engaging in conversation with a journalist, and approximately at the 28-minute mark, he reflects on the 2009 general elections. At that time, he wasn't aligned with any party and even campaigned for money for Congress in Lucknow. Tiwari recalls how he was brought into the Samajwadi Party (SP) by Amar Singh, a prominent politician and the general secretary of the SP.
At approximately the 31:10 mark, Tiwari mentions that despite his initial reluctance, he eventually agreed to run in the election as an SP candidate after persuasion from Amar Singh. This persuasion occurred during a gathering attended by notable figures like actor Amitabh Bachchan and businessman Anil Ambani. Tiwari recalls his reservations about contesting the 2009 elections against BJP leader Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur, citing his prior association with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP. He recounts an incident where he fled to Mumbai during the campaign to avoid facing Adityanath and the inevitable defeat, only to be apprehended and returned.
Around the 34:04 mark, Tiwari says, “Look, I was aware of my defeat, but the sad thing was that I had been winning for a long time; I felt like I was about to lose,” adding: “But even in that defeat, there was a victory because of Yogi Adityanath, who stood for Hindu culture, civilization, and Sanatan culture…. We didn’t know that Narendra Modi would become the country’s prime minister at the time. I’m talking about 2009. In 2009, you could see there was a situation of complete political instability throughout the country.” This context, where it is clear he was referring to the 2009 elections, has been omitted from the viral clip to make it appear as though he conceded defeat in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2009 General elections, the actor-turned-politician launched his political career in Gorakhpur by running as a candidate for the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. He contested against Yogi Adityanath, who has been representing Gorakhpur in Parliament since 1998. However, Tiwari was unsuccessful, securing approximately 83,000 votes. Yogi Adityanath garnered over 400,000 votes, while Bahujan Samaj Party’s Vinay Shankar Tiwari received 182,000 votes. Tiwari subsequently won his first Lok Sabha seat in 2014 after joining the BJP.
Hence, the cropped video has been shared out of context, leading to false claims that Manoj Tiwari conceded defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
(Disclaimer: This story was originally published by NewsMobile, and republished by India TV as part of the Shakti Collective.)