A social media post carrying a purported statement by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, showing his support for Jharkhand Congress Member of Rajya Sabha, Dhiraj Sahu, is going viral.
This post comes at a time when the Income Tax department has recovered over 350 crores from Sahu's premises in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
What does the statement say?: It reads: “Dheeraj Sahu is being framed with false allegations. I am an educated man, I have read the Constitution of India and it is not written on any page that one cannot keep cash at home.”
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)
Is it true?: The claim is false.
The quote was originally posted by a parody account of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
We could not find any tweet of Kejriwal or any news report which showed where he could been seen extending his support for Sahu following the IT raid.
How did we find out?:
STATEMENT: With a relevant keyword search on X, we came across a post by an account, 'AAP ka Kishann', that had shared this statement, attributed to Kejriwal on their profile on 11 December.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
We checked the profile's bio which read, "Not affiliated with any Political Party | All tweets are Satire | Just for Fun | Die hard Fan of Arvind Kejariwal (sic)".
The user's profile was also listed under the entertainment and recreation category.
Here is a screenshot of the user's profile section.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
Further, we looked for statements/comments made by Kejriwal about the IT raid and the cash recovered from Sahu's premises. However, we could not find any statements on AAP's official handles or CM Kejriwal's.
IMAGE: We ran a Google reverse image search and came across multiple news reports by Outlook Magazine and the Times of India that featured a similar image of Kejriwal in their reports. These reports were published on 17 November.
The reports stated that Kejriwal's image is from the AAP's party workers conference that was held on 17 November in Delhi.
We found Kejriwal's full speech on AAP's YouTube page and came across the same frame as the viral post.
At 6:18 minutes of his speech, Kejriwal can be seen making the same hand gestures and facial expressions as the viral post.
Here is a comparison between the viral post and the original video.
(Source: Altered by The Quint)
Conclusion: It is clear that the statement has been falsely attributed to Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. He has not made any statements in support of Jharkhand Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu.
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