An old video of a Bhojpuri actress singing along and dancing to a Bhojpuri song in the front seat of a car, is being shared on social media with the false claim that she is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shreyasi Singh.
Singh is a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Jamui, Bihar. She is also a Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning shooter and joined the BJP in October 2020. Singh is the daughter of former union minister and Lok Sabha MP, Digvijay Singh, who died in 2010.
The 26 seconds video is being shared on X (formerly known as Twitter) with the caption when translated from Hindi reads, "This is Bihar BJP's Jamui MLA Sreshi Singh whose video is going viral fast"
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The video was also shared on X by the verified handle @Yadav__Tina__, with the same false claim. The caption when translated from Hindi reads, "Sanskari MLA of Sanskari Party, Bihar: Jamui: BJP MLA Shreyasi Singh"
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the woman in the viral video is Bhojpuri actress Yamini Singh, and not BJP MLA Shreyasi Singh as being claimed on social media.
We ran a keyword search with BJP MLA Shreyasi Singh name along with the keywords "viral video" and found a January 2023 report by Hindi Newspaper Prabhat Khabar on the same video stating that a video of a Bhojpuri actress was viral falsely claiming it is Singh.
The report identifies the woman in the viral video as Bhojpuri actress Yamini Singh, and states that the video was uploaded on Instagram by one of her fans where she is seen dancing to Bhojpuri songs in her car.
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The report quotes BJP MLA Shreyasi Singh saying, "I am always conscious of my responsibilities and work. I have nothing to do with such things. Social media and other sites which make such ridiculous videos viral should be banned, an FIR has been lodged by my office. Further, it is the responsibility of the police to ensure that appropriate action is taken against such people in this matter."
The report also mentions that Singh had filed an FIR back then on six social media handles that had shared the viral video misidentifying her as the woman in it.
We also found a news report on the viral video uploaded on YouTube on January 6, 2023 which had the byte of a Bihar police official stating that the matter is being investigated and adding that the woman in the viral video is Bhojpuri actress Yamini Singh.
On breaking the viral video into keyframes and running a reverse image search, the search results showed Instagram posts from November 2022, in which Yamini Singh is singing and dancing to different bhojpuri songs overlayed in the background. Singh had also commented from her official Instagram handle on the post on which she was tagged.
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We checked Singh's official Instagram handle and found a post from November 25, 2022, where she is wearing the same outfit while singing and dancing to a Bhojpuri song along with four other people. Singh had also tagged the same Instagram handle 'Pankajbihari789', which had posted the video shot from the same angle as in the viral video.
This can be seen below which establishes that Yamini Singh is the woman in the viral video.