A short clip showing a convoy of vehicles, along with a photo of Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) national general secretary Nara Lokesh at the bottom is being shared on social media.
The claim: The video is being shared with Telugu text, which claims that Lokesh was "caught with bundles of notes" ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Some versions of the claim specify the amount as eight crore rupees.
At the time of writing this report, this Instagram post had gathered over 1.8 lakh views.
(Archives of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, here, and here.)
Is it true?: The claim is misleading. While Nara Lokesh's convoy was stopped for checking, he reportedly cooperated fully and Tadepalli police did not find anything that violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
How did we find out?: We divided the viral video into keyframes and ran reverse image searches on some of them.
One such search led us to a YouTube video on a channel called 'Viswabharath TV', which carried the same visuals and was published on 20 March.
The video stated that all cars in Nara Lokesh's convoy were checked by police personnel.
It added that Lokesh had cooperated fully, and the police had found "nothing against the code in the convoy."
Taking a cue from this, we looked for more information about the viral video.
News agency ANI had shared the same video on X (formerly Twitter), mentioning that the police had checked the TDP leader's convoy because the MCC was in effect ahead of the state's Assembly elections, as well as the general elections.
As per a report by The Times of India, Lokesh was on his way to a campaign-related event when his convoy was stopped by Tadepalli police.
It added that no "prohibited material," such as freebies or precious metals were found, so the "convoy moved with clearance from the authorities."
Sharing a screenshot of the claim being circulated on a WhatsApp group chat, The leader took to his X account to dismiss it in a post.
He said, "As part of the implementation of the election code, my convoy was checked and left."
Lokesh also requested the Election Commission and police to "take action against those who are spreading fake news and posting fake posts."
We also came across a news report by ETV Andhra Pradesh, which carried more visuals of the convoy being checked.
Its description mentioned that the TDP leader's convoy was stopped and checked twice in the same, showing a clip of him talking to police personnel.
The Quint contacted local police personnel, who confirmed that the claim was false.
Conclusion: An altered video of police personnel checking TDP leader Nara Lokesh's convoy is being shared with a false claim that they found a large amount of money in his vehicles.
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