Fact-Check: People Threw Garlands, Not Shoes, at Akhilesh Yadav in Kannauj

A local reporter who attended the rally confirmed to The Quint that nobody threw shoes at Akhilesh Yadav.

People threw garlands and flowers at Akhilesh Yadav during his roadshow in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video of things being thrown at Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav during a roadshow in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh has gone viral on social media, where users have claimed that people threw shoes at Yadav while he was campaigning for the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

At the time of writing this report, this post by an X user gathered over one lakh views.

The Quint received multiple queries to verify this claim on its WhatsApp tipline.

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

But...?: The claim is false.

• In the viral video, none of the objects being thrown at Yadav resemble shoes.

• The Quint also spoke to a local reporter present at the roadshow, who confirmed that garlands were thrown at the leader.

How did we find out the truth?: To begin with, we carefully observed the viral video.

• We noticed that the outline of the objects thrown towards Akhilesh Yadav did not look like shoes, but resembled garlands.

The objects that were flung resembled garlands.

(Source: WhatsApp/Altered by The Quint)

• We also noticed that the video carried a watermark for an Instagram account with the username 'vikashyadavauraiyawale.'

• On this account, we found the same video, shared on 2 May 2024.

• It mentioned that the video was from Kannauj, but did not say anything about shoes being thrown.

No news reports: When we looked for news reports related to Akhilesh Yadav's event in Kannauj, the constituency he is contesting from for the general elections, we came across several articles related to the rally.

• However, none of them mentioned anything related to shoes.

• It is important to note that if shoes were hurled at a notable politician like Yadav, there would be news reports about it.

• Even in video reports about Yadav's Kannauj roadshow, neither were there any visuals, nor was there any mention of shoes.

Local reporter's confirmation: Team WebQoof reached out to Pankaj Kumar Srivastava, a reporter in Kannauj, who had attended the roadshow.

When asked about the viral claim, Srivastava said, "This is fake. People did not throw shoes, only flowers and garlands."

He added that had shoes been thrown at Yadav, people would have reacted on the spot and the incident would have received wide media coverage.

Conclusion: A video of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav's roadshow in Kannauj is being shared to falsely claim that people threw shoes at him during the event.

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