An AI-edited video of a news report purportedly showing former Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan threatening to "expose" the BJP is falsely viral on social media as authentic reporting.
BOOM found that the audio in the viral video is AI-generated and has been overlaid on visuals from an NDTV news report on his resignation.
On July 28, two days after resigning as Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan returned to his home state of Odisha, where he was welcomed by BJP ministers, MLAs and party workers at Bhubaneswar airport. Pradhan resigned on July 25 following weeks of nationwide protests over alleged examination paper leaks led by the CJP.
The Claim:
The video is being shared on Facebook claiming that Pradhan stated he would be soon be exposing the BJP for removing him from the ministry. The video also carries the words “Fake News” at the bottom of the frame.
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What We Found:
1) Original NDTV report
We ran a reverse image search on the key-frames of the viral video which search results showed that the portion featuring the NDTV anchor was taken from a July 26, 2026, news report covering Pradhan’s resignation. The report does not include any segment on Pradhan speaking out against the BJP as seen in the viral video.
2) Original Pradhan video
Additionally, we also found that the visuals of Pradhan used in the viral video, which were taken from a press conference he had addressed on May 15, 2026, on the NEET paper leak issue. During the press conference Pradhan did not make any remarks criticising the BJP.
3) AI Detection Tool Result
We analysed the audio segment from the viral video using AI detection tool Hiya, which showed that it is AI-generated.