Did Akhilesh Yadav Say 'Those Who Want to Oppress Poor, Should Vote For SP'? No!

The video is altered and Akhilesh Yadav had said the opposite of what is being shared on social media.

A video of Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav speaking at a campaign rally is being shared on social media, claiming that he had said that 'those who don't want to follow the law of the land and oppress the poor must vote for SP.'

The video is being shared as the polling for three phases has concluded in the state and the fourth phase will be held on 23 February, with the results being declared on 10 March.

However, we found that the video is altered and he said the opposite of what is being claimed. At a campaign speech in Uttar Pradesh's Auraiya, he had said that those who don't want to follow the law and oppress the poor, mustn't vote for SP.

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CLAIM

As per the claim, the SP chief can purportedly be heard saying, "We are saying, those who want to take the law in their hands, don't want to follow the law, they should vote for Samajwadi Party. Those who want to oppress the poor, they should vote for the SP."

Several social media users have shared the video along with the same claim and the archived links can be seen here, here, here, and here.

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WHAT WE FOUND

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

A Google reverse image search result led us to a slightly longer and clearer version of the video posted on Facebook on 17 February. The banner behind Akhilesh had the word 'Auraiya'.

We then looked for Yadav's Auraiya rally on SP's official YouTube channel and came across a video posted on 16 February.

The viral part can be seen from 23:52-24:11, where Yadav can be heard saying:

"We are saying, those who have to take the law in their hands, don't want to follow the law, they shouldn't vote for SP. Those who want to do injustice to the poor, they shouldn't vote for SP."

Akhilesh Yadav, SP Chief

This showed that the viral clip was altered and the word "na" (no) was removed from the video.

Clearly, an altered video is being shared to falsely claim that Yadav had said that those who want to take law in their hands, want to oppress the poor, should vote for the SP.

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