(Editor's Note: The story was first published on 11 August 2022 and is being republished from The Quint's archives in light of the same video being shared again ahead of the upcoming Gujarat elections, with claims that people in the state beat up BJP members.)
A video of a fight has gone viral on the internet with the claim that it shows a clash that took place in Bihar after the Janata Dal (United) party broke its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recently.
The claim came after the JD(U) formed a new government with the support of the Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal and other political parties. The political turmoil in Bihar had led to BJP politicians criticising Nitish Kumar and even organising a protest against the grand alliance. Other regional parties such as TMC, TRS, and SP came out in support of Kumar.
However, we found that the viral video circulated on the internet is from Kadina More in Chinsurah, West Bengal. The video is of a clash between the BJP and Trinamool Congress workers. TMC MLA from Chinsurah Asit Majumder lashes out at BJP workers and is seen beating the workers with a stick in the video.
CLAIM
The claim was made by Ahmed Khabeer, the editor of Jamia Times and a verified user on Twitter. The user claimed that the incident took place in Bihar which saw political turmoil after the JD(U) quit its alliance with the BJP. The claim goes on to state that the BJP is receiving its share of hatred from the people of Bihar.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
While going through the entire video, we found that the workers were shouting in Bengali and were instructing each other to beat the other party's workers.
We also found a blurred image of a selfie-point with the slogan "I love Chinsurah," which made it pretty evident that the incident took place in the Chinsurah city of West Bengal and not Bihar as claimed in the viral post.
We then conducted a search on Google using relevant keywords and found a report in The Times of India.
The report published in the Times of India contained the same video titled, "Clash breaks out between TMC and BJP workers in Hooghly." The description of the video said, "A clash broke out between TMC and BJP workers in West Bengal's Hooghly district. The clash was captured on camera. A TMC leader can be seen charging at the BJP workers. BJP workers can also be seen raising hands on him." The source of the video was Mirror Now.
The similarities in both the clips can be seen which debunks the claim of the user who said that the incident took place in Bihar as a result of hatred against the BJP in the state.
Evidently, an incident of a violent clash between TMC and BJP workers in Kolkata is being linked to the Bihar political crisis.
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