A video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at a nightclub in Nepal is viral with a false claim that he was partying with China's ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi.
The video went viral when Gandhi was visiting Kathmandu, Nepal to attend the wedding of his friend Sumnima Udas, former CNN international correspondent and the daughter of Bhim Udas, a former Nepali envoy to Myanmar.
BOOM found that the woman is not Yanqi but a close friend of Udas, the bride. Udas also confirmed to BOOM that the woman in the viral video is from Hong Kong, and her friend from when she used to work with CNN Hong Kong bureau.
Additionally, we also reached out to the bride Udas's brother Samyak Udas who denied that the woman in the viral video is a Chinese diplomat. The owner of the nightclub where the video was shot also said Gandhi was attending an event pre booked with other friends of the bride.
On May 3, a video of Congress leader Gandhi talking to a woman in a nightclub started going viral. Soon, a second video from the same location was shared with showed Gandhi checking his phone and the same woman in the background.
Shefali Vaidya, tweeted a screenshot from the video accompanied by a screenshot from a news story about China's ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi with the caption, "Is this the woman @RahulGandhi is partying with in Nepal? #JustAsking"
BOOM has previously fact-checked misinformation tweeted by Vaidya
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Several Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and right wing handles also tweeted photos of Gandhi with the Chinese ambassador making the false claim that the she is the woman in the video. The claims insinuated that Gandhi was meeting and partying with a Chinese national and this was a threat to India.
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The same claim was also tweeted by BJP Delhi leader Kapil Mishra and Aam Aadmi Party MLA Naresh Balyan, who later deleted his tweet.
Right wing outlet OpIndia also carried an article with the claim that the woman in the viral video is a Chinese Ambasador citing it to a Telangana Congress leader.
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BJP social media head Amit Malviya also claimed the same.
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FACT-CHECK
After the video of Rahul Gandhi started going viral, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that is visiting Nepal to attend the wedding of a friend Sumnima Das a former journalist.
We then scanned through Facebook and found that both the videos were first posted by Bhupen Kunwar, a Facebook user and a resident of Kathmandu on May 2, 2022, tagging the location as Lod (Lord of the drinks) in Kathmandu, Nepal. It is not clear whether Kunwar shot the video himself.
We reached out to Rabin Shrestha, CEO of Lord Of Drinks (LOD), a nightclub in Nepal, who told us that as far as he knew Gandhi had visited the club along with several other guests from Sumnima Udas's wedding. Shrestha confirmed the location as LOD and said, "The video is from LOD. Gandhi was accompanied by guests of the bride Sumnima Udas. They had made a booking for about 18 people for an event before the wedding at the club. As far as I know, the woman in the viral video is not a Chinese diplomat," Shreshta told BOOM.
She is not a Chinese diplomat. She is one of my closest friends from my time at CNN in Hong Kong: Sumnima Udas to BOOM
We then reached out Sumnima Udas, the bride who denied that the woman in the viral video was a Chinese diplomat. Speaking to BOOM, Sumnima said, "She is not a Chinese diplomat, she is one of my closest friends from my time at CNN in Hong Kong. She would prefer not to be named."
Additionally, Udas's brother, Samyak also denied that the woman in the viral video was a Chinese diplomat and added that she was from the bride's side at the wedding. Samyak confirmed that the woman is from Hong Kong and worked with his sister and is now a script writer.
"No, she is not a Chinese ambassador. She is a friend of the bride from her days in Hong Kong. Professionally, she is a script writer," Udas told BOOM adding that the woman did not wish to give out her name to the media.