India TV Fact Check: Assembly elections are approaching in Madhya Pradesh, and the entire state is in an election mood. Alongside this, there is a proliferation of election-related content on the internet. Supporters of different political parties are sharing fake and misleading news and videos on social media. In this regard, a video has come to our attention in which it is claimed that a shoe was thrown at Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. When we fact-checked this video, it was revealed that this video is quite old.
Claim
There is a viral video circulating on Facebook in which Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is seen giving a speech on a stage somewhere. In this video, Shivraj Singh is surrounded by his security personnel, and there is also the presence of a police force. Suddenly, a shoe is thrown towards the stage. Immediately, CM Shivraj's security personnel and the police present there spring into action to locate the miscreant who threw the shoe.
This video has been shared by a Facebook user named 'Office-Of Dharmendra Bajpai.' The caption accompanying this video reads, "Throwing shoes at CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan signifies deep public dissatisfaction with the government... It is clear that the era of political gimmicks is nearing its end... The days of false promises and those who use religion for their gains are over... The mask of those who have looted the public mandate is now lifted... Only the truth will prevail from now on..."
Meanwhile, another Facebook user, 'Mohammad Arif,' shared the same video with the caption, "The trend of shoe-throwing is on the rise day by day, now a shoe has been thrown at Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Mama)."
Fact Check
When we watched this video, it was clear that there was no sign of editing in this incident of shoe-throwing. Then we went to Google and started searching with keywords like 'Shivraj Singh + Shoe Thrown.' During this search, we came across a news article from 2018. The article mentioned an incident of a shoe being thrown at Shivraj Singh Chouhan. This news was published on the Hindi website 'One India' on September 5, 2018. According to this five-year-old news, the shoe was thrown at Chief Minister Shivraj while he was addressing a gathering in Sidhi. However, at that time, the shoe did not hit the CM and fell nearby.
Video of last assembly election
In this news article, there was also a video attached, which showed Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the same attire as in the viral video on Facebook. The security personnel accompanying the CM were also the same, and the entire sequence of events in the video matched the viral video frame by frame. This video is actually from the previous state legislative assembly elections when CM Shivraj was undertaking a Jan Ashirwad Yatra in the state. The incident of stone pelting on CM Shivraj also came to the fore during Jan Ashirwad Yatra.
After this discovery, we further investigated the incident. We conducted a YouTube search with keywords related to Shivraj Singh being hit by a shoe. Our search led us to a video on the digital media channel 'News Tak' on YouTube, which also showed the same video of Shivraj Singh. This video was uploaded on September 3, 2018.
Therefore, India TV Fact Check revealed that this video is five years old, and the claim associated with the video is misleading. The video is from the previous legislative assembly elections when there was an incident of a shoe being thrown at the CM due to protests against the SC/ST Act.
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