A rumour of former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Mulayam Singh Yadav passing away went viral earlier in the week after after his namesake and a Member of Legislative Council from Auraiya died on October 3, 2020.
The rumour even led to his WikiPedia page being updated– twice – before the error was rectified.
An official spokesperson from the Samajwadi Party, Anurag Bhadauriya, confirmed to BOOM that the party supremo is alive and the person who passed away was an MLC who shared his name with the former chief minister of the state.
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On October 3, 2020, a Member of Legislative Council from Auraiya, Mulayam Singh Yadav, passed away at the age of 92. Following which the official Facebook page of the party posted an obit without clarifying the identity explicitly between the two politicians which led to the confusion.
Posts with the false claims can be seen below, their archived versions are available here and here.
The Hindi Wikipedia page of Mulayam Singh Yadav was also updated twice. First, the edit was made to add the date of the death as October 3, 2020 (archive) which was later changed to October 5, 2020 (archive). Later, the incorrect information was removed.
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Fact Check
BOOM found that the reports mentioned that the person who died was an MLC and was 92-year-old. We found a tweet on the official Twitter handle of the Samajwadi Party which had posted the photograph of the deceased leader, i.e. Mulayam Singh Yadav.
While searching with relevant keywords we found a tweet by a daughter-in-law of the former chief minister, Aparna Bisht Yadav, rubbishing the rumours. "By the grace of god, our beloved father, our Netaji, Mulayam Singh Yadavji is healthy," tweeted Yadav.
We also reached out to a spokersperson of the Samajwadi Party who said the viral claims are false and that the deceased was a namesake.
"An MLC from Auraiya had died who shared his name with the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, netaji is healthy and alive," Anurag Bhadauriya, an official spokesperson of the party, told BOOM.
The same has been corroborated by Uday Veer Singh, another spokesperson of the party, "its false, netaji is healthy. The person who had died was an MLC from Auraiya," Singh said.
Akhilesh Yadav, former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and the son of Mulayam Singh Yadav, had posted the photograph of the namesake leader calling him the "close aid of netaji."
It is noteworthy that the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav, was admitted to Medanta Hospital in Lucknow last month reportedly due to a urinary tract infection.
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