Fact Check: Amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, a video of Union Home Minister Amit Shah is making the rounds on social media where he claims that if the BJP comes to power, it will abolish 'unconstitutional reservations' for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC). However, the investigation reveals that this video has been manipulated and shared to spread misinformation.
What is going viral?
On social media platform X, a user named Santosh Diwate posted a video on April 28 at 6:42 am, purportedly showing Home Minister Amit Shah stating that if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes to power, it will abolish the "unconstitutional reservation" for SC, ST, and OBC. Along with the post, the user wrote, "We will end SC-ST and OBC reservation: Home Minister Amit Shah." This video has quickly gained traction on social media and has sparked discussions.
Fact Check
The Fact Check team launched an investigation into the claim. The team noticed the logo V6 on the clip and using this clue the team found the original video on the YouTube channel of V6 News which was uploaded on April 23, 2023. The video was titled "Union Minister Amit Shah commented on Muslim reservations."
At about 2:38 minutes in the video, Shah said, “When a BJP government is formed, we will abolish unconstitutional reservation for Muslims. The right (to reservation) belongs to the SC/ST?OBCs of Telangana. They will get their right and we will end Muslim reservations”.
The original video is from his rally held in Telangana in 2023, in which Shah announced that if the BJP is voted to power in the state, it will end the Muslim reservation. NDTV also published the video on April 24, 2023, with the headline 'Amit Shah vows to end Muslim quota in Telangana'. According to the channel, during a rally in Chevella near Hyderabad, Amit Shah criticised religion-based reservation, branding it as 'unconstitutional'. He pledged that if the BJP came to power in the state, he would terminate reservation for Muslims in Telangana.
What came out in fact check?
It's evident that the viral video has been edited. In the original clip, Shah discussed abolishing Muslim reservation, but in the doctored version, his words were digitally altered to appear as if he was talking about abolishing SC, ST and OBC reservation. This fact check confirms that the viral video clip of Amit Shah is old and has been doctored. The claim that Amit Shah called for abolishing the reservation quota for SC, ST, and OBC communities is false.
Result: False
(Disclaimer: This story was originally published by News Meter, and republished by India TV as part of the Shakti Collective.)
