No, That's Not Congress Spokesperson Praising PM Narendra Modi

The man seen in the video is senior journalist Jagdeesh Chandra and not a Congress spokesperson as claimed.

The video is being shared with the claim that a Congress spokesperson had praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video is being shared on social media along with the claim that one Congress spokesperson has heaped praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was asked if Rahul Gandhi can give a fight to him.

However, we found that the man seen in the video is senior journalist and chairman and managing director (CMD) of Rajasthan-based channel 'First India News (Rajasthan)' Jagdeesh Chandra, and not any Congress spokesperson as claimed.

CLAIM

The video is being shared along with the claim, in Hindi, that reads, "जब कांग्रेस प्रवक्ता से पत्रकार ने पूछा क्या नरेंद्र मोदी का मुकाबला राहुल गांधी कर सकते है? तब कांग्रेस प्रवक्ता ने मोदीजी के बारे में जो कहा, सुनिए."

(Translation: When Congress spokesperson was asked by a journalist whether Rahul Gandhi can give a tough fight to Narendra Modi, listen what the Congress spokesperson said about Modi.)

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Several social media users have shared the video along with the same claim on Twitter and Facebook. Archived links can be here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

With the help of InVid, a video verification tool, and extracted several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.

A Google reverse image search result led us to one video clipping on the YouTube media channel of 'First India News' published 14 December.

Screengrab from First India News.

(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)

We found the longer version of the video on the YouTube channel and the viral part can be heard from 55:37 minutes to 58:30 minutes.

The tile of the video read, "क्या है Congress Maha Rally और Rahul Gandhi के हिंदुत्व वाले बयान के मायने ? | The New JC Show"

(Translation: Decoding Congress' Maha Rally and Rahul Gandhi's 'Hindutva' remarks.)

At the start of the video, the anchor of the show 'The New JC Show' introduces him as 'channel head Jagdeesh Chandra'. You can hear it from 1:03-1:09 minutes.

We also looked for news about Jagdeesh Chandra and an ANI report from 8 October read that the regional news channel of Rajasthan 'First India News' had gone digital.

Chandra, who is the channel's CMD, had taken over the Rajasthan-based channel in 2018, the report read.

Further, we also spoke to Shishir Awasthi, digital head of First India News, who told us that this is a misleading claim and that Chandra is not a spokesperson of any political party.

Clearly, a video of senior journalist Jagdeesh Chandra speaking in his show is being shared on social media with the false claim that a Congress spokesperson had praised Narendra Modi.

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