An edited clip of AIUDF Chief Badruddin Ajmal is being shared to falsely claim that he said if the Congress-AIUDF alliance is voted to power in Assam, India will become an “Islamic country”.
AIUDF has formed a grand alliance with Congress and six other parties ahead of the polls.
CLAIM
The 36-second-long video was shared by ABP News journalist Astha Kaushik with the claim: “All India United democratic front party के बदरूद्दीन अजमल कह रहे हैं कि भारत जल्द ही इस्लामिक स्टेट बनेगा! क्या अब कांग्रेस पार्टी इसपर अपनी राय ज़ाहिर करेगी? क्योंकि इसी AIUDF के साथ असम में कांग्रेस गठबंधन है! (sic)”
(Translation: Badruddin Ajmal of All India United democratic front party is saying that India will soon become an Islamic state! Will the Congress party now express its opinion on this? Because Congress is in alliance with the AIUDF in Assam.)
The tweet was viewed over 15,000 times, but was later taken down.
Columnist Ratan Sharda, too, tweeted the video claiming that the AIUDF leader said, “Mughals have ruled India for eight hundred years. One day this country will become an Islamic nation.”
He later deleted the tweet.
Actor Paresh Rawal quote-tweeted Ratan Sharda’s tweet, saying, “As expected no outrage from liberals!”
The Twitter handle of Asianetnews Hindi also shared the video, making a similar claim.
The clip was shared by Karnataka MP and BJP leader Shobha Karandlaje, stating that the “sinister plan of making Assam a Sharia state is out! (sic)”
Several Twitter and Facebook users have shared the 36-second-long video with similar claims.
The Quint received multiple queries on the claim being made in the video on its WhatsApp tipline as well.
WHAT DOES BADRUDDIN AJMAL SAY IN THE VIRAL CLIP?
In the video, he can be heard saying, “Mughals have ruled over India for 800 years. This country will become an Islamic nation. Who will form the government? Our UPA-mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) will form the government over there, Insha Allah. And in that government, your party (UDF), Lock and Key (the party symbol) will be a coalition partner, Insha Allah. In India, there would have been no Hindus, everyone would become Muslim.”
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We searched on YouTube with the keywords ‘AIUDF Badruddin’ and came across a 2019 video uploaded with the caption: ‘Maulana Badruddin Ajmal speech at Barpeta [sic.].’
In the 21-minute-long video, at 04:30 minutes, while addressing the public, he said, “I wanted to say a lot but we don't have a lot of time. This election is not a child’s play for us. This is not a panchayat election or an MLA election. This election is to decide who will sit on Delhi’s throne as the prime minister. Do you want to see Modi as PM?”
At 05:49 minutes, he can be heard making a remark about the Mughals.
“Do you know, in India, Mughals ruled for 800 years but they never dared to dream of making this an Islamic nation. If they wanted, during those 800 years, they would have made sure that there would have been no Hindus, everyone would have become Muslim. Did they do that?...They didn’t even try to do that. They didn’t have the courage to do it,” he added.
At 06:22 minutes, he spoke about the British and said that they ruled the country for 200 years. “They didn't dare to make India a Christian nation. Then after India gained Independence, the Congress ruled over the country for 55 of the 70 years, from Nehru (Jawaharlal Nehru), Shastri (Lal Bahadur Shastri), Rajiv Gandhi to Singh (Manmohan Singh) to Narasimha Rao. No Congress leader dreamt of making India a Hindu Rashtra,” he added.
He then went on to say, “But Modi ji, doesn’t have this dream. Your dream will become a lie. Now you have to vote for lock and key and not for Modi, BJP, RSS and Himanta. Then, we can make sure the government that will be formed after Ramzan will not have Modi as the PM.”
“We (UPA mahagathbandhan) will form the government and in that government, your party AIUDF will a coalition partner... We thought our fight was with the BJP or with Kumar Dipak Das. Now Himanta is paying money to Khaliq saab. Khaliq saab goes to Himanta Biswa Sarma's house for 2-2.5 hours everyday. He can't digest food without meeting Sarma,” he can be heard as saying.
At 07:57 minutes, he said, “Who will form the government? Our UPA-mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) will form the government over there, Insha Allah. And in that government, your party (UDF), Lock and Key (the party symbol) will be a coalition partner, Insha Allah.”
The circulated video has been heavily edited to reflect that Ajmal made such a statement.
AIUDF ISSUES CLARIFICATION
The official Twitter handle of AIDUF also tweeted a chunk from the longer video stating, “Here’s the original video from where parts are clipped to make the doctored one (sic).”
“This is 100 percent fake. Parts from different speeches have been merged to make this and project that if Congress-AIUDF alliance comes to power, it will make Assam an Islamic state,” news agency ANI quoted Badruddin Ajmal as saying.
“If you see the actual video you will find that I was asking people that when Himanta Biswa Sarma called me Mughal, I had asked that Mughals ruled India for 800 years but did they even think of making India an Islamic state? People said ‘No’,” he added.
Evidently, an edited video of AIUDF Chief Badruddin Ajmal was shared by many social media users with the false claim that if the party and its alliance comes to power, India will become an Islamic nation.
(Editor’s Note: The story has been updated to include tweets by Asianetnews Hindi, actor Paresh Rawal and BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje carrying the edited video)
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