Clipped Video of Siddaramaiah's Mandya Speech Shared With a Communal Spin

In the video, he was attacking HD Deve Gowda for joining hands with the BJP.

A video of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with the logo of news channel, TV9 Kannada, where he is speaking in Kannada is being shared on social media platforms.

What are the users saying?: Those sharing the video have claimed that Siddaramaiah said that he wished to be born a Muslim in his next life.

• In the viral clip, Siddaramaiah can be heard saying "In the next generation, I want to be born as a Muslim" in Kannada.

This post recorded 21.8K views at the time of writing this story. (Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Is this true?: The claim is false as this video is clipped.

• CM Siddaramaiah was speaking at the Guarantee Convention at Mandya and hit out at the Janata Dal (Secular) - JDS. He called out HD Deve Gowda for "joining hands" with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

• The CM had said it was the same Dewe Gowda who had once said that he would never "go with the BJP" and if there were any next life, he would want to be born a Muslim as the BJP is a "kaumwadi" party.

How did we find out?: At first, we divided the viral video into multiple keyframes and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.

• We also noticed the logo of TV9 Kannada on the viral clip.

• We found the longer version of the video on TV9 Kannada's YouTube channel from 10 March.

• It was uploaded with the title, "CM Siddaramaiah Speech At Guarantee Convention In Mandya, Slams BJP, JDS And Sumalatha Ambareesh"

• The viral video's frames matched the TV9 Kannada YouTube video.

We tried identifying the portion in the YouTube video and found the following:

• 18:00 minutes onwards, Siddaramaiah commented on the 2008 Operation Kamala, which led to the BJP securing a majority in Karnataka against the Congress and JDS government.

• At 18:26 minutes, he said, "They (JDS) are joining those who removed their government itself." (translated from Kannada to English)

• At 18:35 minutes, the CM said, "It is the same Deve Gowda ji who had said, I will not go with the BJP at any cost. If there's any life where I'm born here again, in my next life I wish to be born a Muslim. Because BJP is a 'kaumwadi' party." (translated from Kannada to English)

• Towards the end, he said that the people of Mandya never supported the BJP. (translated from Kannada to English)

• Clearly, Siddaramaiah was speaking about HD Deve Gowda and not himself in the viral video.

Conclusion: It is clear that the viral video has falsely claimed that Siddaramaiah said that he wanted to be born a Muslim in his next life.

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