No, This Hoarding About Power Cuts is Neither Recent, Nor From UP

The photo shows a hoarding in Madhya Pradesh, and were put up in 2019 when the Congress was in power.

A photo of a hoarding showing an advertisement featuring Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Ravi Kishan is being shared on social media platforms.

The hoarding shows Kishan advertising for OTT platform Hotstar, with text in Hindi asking people to download the platform’s application to watch cricket amid frequent power cuts.

The ad’s photograph is being shared to claim that the BJP MP is openly asking people to prepare for power cuts in Uttar Pradesh.

However, the photograph shows hoardings put up in Indore, Madhya Pradesh and date back to May 2019, before Kishan won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the Gorakhpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

Notably, Congress leader Kamal Nath was chief minister of Madhya Pradesh when the advertisement came out.

CLAIM

The photo is being shared to take a dig at BJP to say that even a party MP was talking about repeated power cuts in the state.

Samajwadi Party (SP) spokesperson IP Singh also shared the photo on Twitter, as one from Uttar Pradesh.

Archived versions of more posts on social media with the same claim can be seen here, here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We looked up the Hindi text about 'watching cricket despite power cuts on social media,' and came across a post by one Sandeep Raghuvanshi dated 13 May 2019, which carried a photo similar to the one in the claim.

The post’s caption noted that the advertisement was put up in Madhya Pradesh.

We also saw a signboard which read 'Indore Municipal Corporation’ at the bottom of the hoarding.

The same post was also shared by a Facebook page named ‘I love my Indore’.

MP Ravi Kishan had shared a photograph of him in the same clothing as seen in the advertisement in April 2019, captioned “#commercial shoot for #hotstar (sic).”

Further, it must be noted that Kishan won the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur constituency, whose results were announced on 23 May 2019.

Clearly, a photo of an old advertisement’s hoarding from Indore, Madhya Pradesh featuring BJP MP Ravi Kishan is being shared to claim that the ads were put up in Uttar Pradesh, to take a dig at frequent power cuts in the BJP-led state.

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