Viral Clip Of BJP Candidate Being Greeted With Shoe Garland Is From MP

An old video from Madhya Pradesh showing a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate being greeted by the public with a garland of shoes is viral on social media with captions falsely linking it to Bihar.

BOOM found that the video is from Madhya Pradesh and shows BJP candidate Dinesh Sharma who was campaigning for the civic body elections in the state's Dhar district in 2018 when the incident took place.

The video is viral at a time when Bihar is gearing up for the state elections. Polling for the Bihar elections would be conducted in three phases beginning October 28 and the counting of votes will take place on November 10.

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The 24-second-long video shows a BJP candidate canvassing in a residential area surrounded by his supporters. While the supporters are playing drums, the candidate moves towards the elders standing on the pavement to seek their blessings. Precisely at this moment, an elderly man presents the candidate with a garland of shoes.

The candidate is taken aback but accepts the garland. Further in the video, the man can be seen reprimanding the candidate.

A caption with the video reads 'Grand welcome accorded to BJP leaders in Bihar, the residents are greeting them with a garland of shoes'.

(Hindi: बिहार में भाजपा नेताओं का भव्य स्वागत, जनता जूतों की माला पहना रही है..!#Boycott_BJP 🤣🤣🤣)

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Fact Check

BOOM did a reverse image search on one of the frames of the video and found an article published on NDTV on January 8, 2018 which had screengrabs from the same video.

The NDTV report stated that the BJP candidate seen in the video is Dinesh Sharma from Dhamnod in MP's Dhar district. It is noteworthy that municipal elections were scheduled for January 17, 2018 in the state.

Using keywords 'dhamnod', 'BJP', 'garland' and 'shoes' on YouTube, we found a longer version of the same video uploaded by news agency ANI on January 7, 2018.

The video has been titled 'Watch: Local greets BJP candidate with garland of shoes - Madhya Pradesh News'.

According to the ANI report, the old man Parshuram had taken the step as he was unhappy with the acute water shortage in the area.

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