India TV Fact Check: As the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections draw near, several political leaders' statements with false claims are circulating widely on social media. In this context, we came across a viral video featuring Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The claim associated with the video suggests that Chouhan is predicting the BJP's defeat in the upcoming elections and asserting that the public is unhappy due to unemployment and inflation. However, upon fact-checking, it was found that the video has been edited and is being shared with false claims.
What is going viral?
A social media user 'Bhaskar Dwivedi' (@BhDwivedi_INC) shared the video on social media platform X on October 23, 2023. The caption with the video reads, "Worried Shivraj #BJP_Election_Commission." This video has been shared by several users. Another X user, @ShadowSakshi, tweeted the same video. This video was shared on October 26, 2023, with the caption, "Put all your efforts, brothers, to somehow save BJP/power/Modi. If it doesn't work out, pay money, and even if that doesn't work, use ED, CBI, and income tax openly."
In this video, the voice of Chief Minister Chouhan can be heard saying, "Look, brothers, I will speak directly without wasting time. Due to inflation and unemployment, the people of the state are dissatisfied with the BJP. Surveys also indicate that our party's position is concerning. Therefore, I urge everyone to go all out for the elections. Go to every district, go to every village, especially in Indore, Ujjain, and Damoh, where our votes are fewer. Deploy as many of our workers as possible in these areas. Conduct door-to-door campaign. Show the letter issued by Prime Minister Modi, make a vote appeal, and ask for votes in Modi Ji's name. Otherwise, this time, the party will face a heavy defeat."
India TV investigated
When we closely examined this video, we noticed that it had the logo of the news agency ANI displayed at the top. The voice coming from behind Chief Minister Shivraj and his lip-syncing in the video appeared to be out of sync. This raised suspicion that the video was edited. Following this, we extracted a few keyframes from the video and used Google Lens for a search. This search led us to the video uploaded on The Times of India website.
The video we found on The Times of India website is the same video that is being circulated on social media and was published on June 26, 2023. The headline reads: "MP: CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan holds review meeting regarding PM’s visit to the state." This article reports that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan held a review meeting on June 26 in Bhopal regarding Prime Minister Modi's visit to the state. What's important to note is that the video on The Times of India website does not contain any audio, and Shivraj Singh Chouhan is not seen saying anything that is claimed in the viral video.
'There is no audio in original video'
Afterwards, we started searching to confirm whether Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made any statements during the meeting about BJP's potential defeat. We began looking for the authentic video from ANI to verify this. Using keywords, we conducted a Google search and found the original video on ANI's official YouTube channel, which was uploaded on June 26, 2023. This video on ANI News' official YouTube channel also had no audio, and it only contained visuals from the meeting. This meeting was related to reviewing preparations for Prime Minister Modi's visit to Madhya Pradesh, not about any election.
What came out in the fact check?
When we fact-checked the viral video, we discovered that it wasn't from an election-related meeting but rather from a review meeting related to Prime Minister Modi's visit. Moreover, the authentic video had no audio. Therefore, the viral video is indeed edited and does not represent any statement made by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan about the BJP's potential defeat.
