A video of Madhya Pradesh's Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan admitting that the Bhartiya Janata Party's prospects in the upcoming state election were worrisome and appealing to his party members to work hard at their campaigns is viral online. BOOM found that the video is old and Chouhan made no such statement recently; the audio has been overlaid into the video to make the false claim.
Upcoming assembly elections in five states including Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, and Rajasthan are scheduled to be held in November. For Madhya Pradesh, voting begins on November 17 and the results will be declared on December 3.
Amid this, a video of MP's current CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan admitting that the party has disappointed the public with rising inflation and unemployment is viral online. Chouhan is also heard saying that the party will have to gear up and ask for votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to win this election; he further explains how surveys also showed that the party's condition in the state was worrisome.
Read the full quote here, "Look brothers, I will get to the point without wasting any time. Because of inflation and unemployment, the Pradesh's people has gone against the BJP. Surveys also suggest that our party's condition is worrisome. That is why I am telling everyone, start working towards the elections rigorously. Go to every zilla, village, especially Indore, Ujjain, and Damoh where our votes are significantly less. Put more and more of your party workers in these areas for the campaign. Show them the letter by PM Modi and use that to appeal for votes in his name, otherwise the party will lose by a vast majority."
The claim was shared by a verified X account @ShadowSakshi who has described herself as Congress' social media state co-ordinator with the caption, "Use all your strength, brothers, and somehow save #BJP / Power/ Modi, if you fall short then give money, even then if it doesn't work, use #ED #CBI #incometax freely.")
(Original text in Hindi: "पूरी ताकत लगा दो भाइयों किसी तरह #BJP / सत्ता/ मोदी को बचाओ ,कम पड़े तो पैसा दो , फिर भी काम ना चले तो #ED #CBI #incometax का खुल कर प्रयोग करें
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The post is also circulating on Facebook.
Click here to view the post.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the old video of Shivraj Singh Chouhan has been overlaid with a fake audio to make the claims; Chouhan made no such statement about the upcoming elections in Madhya Pradesh.
We ran a keyword search of the incident on YouTube using 'Shivraj Singh Chouhan meeting' found a video shared Asian News International (ANI) on June 26, 2023. The video bore a close resemblance to the viral video and was shared with the title 'MP: CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan holds review meeting regarding PM’s visit to state'
Taking a cue from this, we also ran a search on X for the video and found that ANI's MP/Chhattisgarh/Rajasthan handle had shared a longer version of the video without any audio or music in the background.
This video by ANI carries no audio or background music.
Here is a comparison between the viral video and the video shared by ANI.
We noticed that while the ANI showed long shots, the audio clip of Chouhan speaking was clear and did not have any ambient noise.
According to reports, Chouhan held a review meeting on June 26 in Bhopal ahead of PM Modi's visit to the state on June 27.
The official handle of Chouhan on X also shared a post about the meeting on June 26.
We also ran a search for news reports from June about Chouhan admitting the BJP's prospects in the state elections and did not find any results.