Fact-Check: This Video of Gujarat Man Talking Against PM Modi is Old!

The video of man talking about PM Modi was taken during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and is not recent.

The video is old and was taken during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A video of a man from Gujarat, claiming to be a former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) member, criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a media interview is being shared on social media.

The claim: Those sharing the video have done so with some text in Marathi, which translates to, "Carefully listen to what the people of your own party say," referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

• In the video, the Gujarati man talks about one Tej Bahadur Yadav.

• Claiming that he is a BJP and RSS supporter while also being a devout Hindu, he criticises PM Modi.

• He says that Yadav is the strongest fighter against injustice in the country, "and the cause of that injustice is Modi."

• The man adds that he, along with PM Modi, was a part of the 2002 Gujarat riots, making allegations against the latter and saying that Modi "is scared of Tej Bahadur."

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

The Quint received a query for this video's verification on its WhatsApp tipline.

(Archives of more posts on social media can be seen here and here.)

But...?: The video dates back to 2019 and has no connection to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

How did we find out the truth?: Using InVID, a Google Chrome extension, we divided the video into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on one of them across search engines.

• On the Russian search engine Yandex, we came across a clearer screenshot of the video without any text overlapping it.

• This showed us that the video had a watermark reading 'Times Express' on the top-right corner, with the location mentioned as Varanasi.

The search led us to a clearer screenshot of the video.

(Source: Yandex/Screenshot)

• Using relevant keywords, we looked for social media profiles for 'Times Express'.

• We came across Facebook and Instagram pages, as well as a YouTube channel with the same name and logo.

• We went through all their accounts but did not find this video on any of them.

• On its YouTube channel, we came across a contact number and reached out to the channel's admin.

• The admin identified himself as Arun Kumar and confirmed that it was his channel's video.

"This video was taken before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the man is talking about Tej Bahadur Yadav, who had contested elections against PM Modi from Varanasi back then," Kumar told The Quint.

Who is Tej Bahadur Yadav?: Tej Bahadur Yadav is a dismissed Border Security Force (BSF) soldier and former Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate who contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

The Election Commission of India (EC) had rejected his nomination due to discrepancies in two consequent filings.

Conclusion: An old video of a man criticising PM Modi and talking about the 2002 Gujarat riots is being shared during the ongoing general elections.

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