Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal faced the brunt of the fake news factory this week, as doctored videos of his speech at the United India Rally in Kolkata, have gone viral on social media.
The Facebook video - "Modi and Shah will ruin Pakistan"
In a video that is being shared widely on Facebook, Kejriwal is shown saying, “The more I think of it, the more my body trembles. If Modi and Shah come back in 2019, then Pakistan won’t survive. Pakistan will be ruined.”
It has been viewed more than 41000 times and shared widely over Facebook.
We played the video several times over and noticed a sharp change in the tone and pitch of the voice and the background noise when the word ‘Pakistan’ is pronounced.
Looking through the coverage of the rally at Kolkata, we found the unedited video of Kejriwal’s speech as covered by Telegu news channel AP 24X7.
In this video, at 05:28, we can find the original segment of the speech which was utilised for the edited video that has gone viral.
In the original speech, Kejriwal is heard saying, “If Modi and Amit Shah come back in 2019, this country will be not survive. This country will be ruined.” In the edited video, the Hindi word ‘desh’ (country) has been replaced by 'Pakistan'.
Arvind Kejriwal did make a reference to Pakistan during his speech. At 05:17, he says, “Pakistan has been dreaming of dividing India for the last 70 years. What Pakistan could not do in 70 years, Modi and Amit Shah have done in 5 years.” However, he did not talk about Pakistan being ruined, as the doctored video claims.
The video has also been debunked by AltNews.
The Twitter video - Kejriwal asking for donations
Another video, shared on Twitter, shows Kejriwal saying, “Those who are true patriots, who truly think about the country, they must keep one thing in mind. All those people must donate. Those who are poor can give Rs. 100 a month, those who have a bit more can give Rs. 1000, those who have a bit more can give Rs. 10000 and those who have a bit more can give Rs. 1 lakh a month.”
After putting this video under scrutiny, where Kejriwal is shown asking for donations, we found a sharp change in the tone and pitch of the voice along with the ambient noise, just like the Facebook video.
As we looked through Kejriwal’s original speech, at 08:09 we found the segment of his speech that was utilised in the Twitter video. In the unadulterated video, instead of asking for donations, Kejriwal is heard saying, “Do whatever is necessary to drive Modi and Amit Shah away during 2019 (elections).”
We also searched “Kejriwal asking for donations” on Google, to determine the source of the sound clip that has been spliced into the video of the speech from Saturday’s rally. We found the sound clip from an older video of Kejriwal requesting AAP volunteers to donate at “Aap Ka DAAN, Rashtra Ka Nirmaan" Donation Campaign”.
In this video, at 16:49, Kejriwal is heard asking for donations from his volunteers with the exact same audio that was edited into the video of his speech from Saturday.
The Twitter video seems to have merged a sound-clip from an older video of Kejriwal addressing AAP volunteers into the video of Kejriwal's speech at Kolkata.
It is safe to say that he did not ask for donations at the rally on Saturday.
The United India Rally held on 19 January at Kolkata, saw the coming together of regional and national party leaders in an attempt to form an opposition against the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
While the objective of the rally was unite in their efforts to oust Narendra Modi from the post of prime minister, the opposition leaders failed to address the crowd on who would represent their coalition as the Prime Ministerial candidate.