An old video of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Hardik Patel is being widely shared with a false claim that it shows people in Gujarat protesting against the ruling BJP ahead of assembly polls in the state.
BOOM found the video shows an incident from 2019 when Hardik Patel was a Congress leader. Patel joined the BJP in June 2022. The video is circulating in the backdrop of Assembly polls of Gujarat that is scheduled in December, 2022.
The 45-second long video shows people confronting Patel and questioning the reason behind his support for activist Shehla Rashid. Patel, in the video, can be seen defending himself answering the questions pointed towards him.
The video is being shared with a Hindi caption which translates to, "BJP leader Hardik Patel was driven away by the public. People of Gujarat are very angry with the BJP."
(Original Text in Hindi: भाजपा नेता हार्दिक पटेल को जनता ने भगाया... गुजरात के लोग बहुत नाराज़ हैं भाजपा से)
Click here to view the post.
Click here to view the post.
Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the video and found a longer version of the same video on a YouTube channel DeshGujaratHD uploaded on March 26, 2019.
The video is titled as, "Hardik Patel grilled by morning walkers in Ahmedabad's Prahladnagar garden".
An excerpt from the video description reads, "Congress leader Hardik Patel and another Congress leader Alpesh Thakor were at Prahladnagar garden in western part of Ahmedabad to give TV interview to Gujarati news channel TV9 Gujarati when morning walkers present there choose to confront Hardik Patel and asked him questions and delivered barbs."
Taking a cue, we searched for Gujarati news reports on the incident and found a news bulletin from the official channel of VTV Gujarati News carrying the same video clip uploaded on March 26, 2019.
The video shows how Patel and Thakor were quizzed by commoners while shooting for a television interview.
We also found news reports on Hardik Patel joining the Congress in 2019 ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Patel, who was earlier a Patidar quota agitation leader, joined the Congress on March 12, 2019 with an intention to contest the election in presence of the then party president Rahul Gandhi.
Patel later cut his ties from the Congress in June 2022 and joined the BJP saying he wants to work under PM Modi as a 'small soldier'.
Click here to view his tweet.
