On Tuesday, 16 March, Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Mahua Moitra took to Twitter to claim that UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, during one of his rallies on 16 March in West Bengal had threatened to “kill” TMC workers one by one, if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is elected to power in the state.
However, The Quint revisited all of Yogi’s speeches delivered on 16 March in the poll-bound state and found that Moitra’s claim is false.
CLAIM
The TMC MP, in her tweet, wrote: “So Yogi CM comes to WB today, says he will kill 'TMC goondas' one by one Gudduji – listen up – your thok do culture may work in the vanar sena commune you ruled, doesn’t work here (sic).”
The claim subsequently went viral on Facebook.
WHAT WE FOUND
The UP chief minister is on BJP’s star campaigners’ list for West Bengal. We searched for Adityanath’s recent speeches and went through them one by one. There were references to TMC workers made in all his speeches. However, we could not find any mention of “killing” them, as claimed by Moitra.
1. Rally in Balarampur
Yogi’s first rally in Balarampur in Purulia district was live streamed by the West Bengal unit of BJP on YouTube. In his approximately 19-minute-long speech, Yogi at 3.36 minute mark starts speaking about political violence in West Bengal.
Five minutes and 12 seconds into the video, we hear him say that, “TMC goons responsible for murdering BJP workers in the state will be punished by law.”
There is no mention of “killing” TMC workers anywhere.
2. Rally in Belda, West Medinipur
Yogi’s second rally, live streamed by his Facebook page, was organised in West Medinipur’s Belda.
Even in this speech –16 minutes into the video – the UP chief minister makes a reference to BJP workers killed in West Bengal and says that after 2 May, law will punish those behind this violence.
3. Rally in Raipur, Bakura
During his speech at Raipur, Adityanath referred to TMC workers as “goondas” (goons) twice, 6 minutes into his speech, to state that schemes launched by the central government for the welfare of people do not reach the people of Bengal because of TMC “goons”.
However, even in this speech there is no mention of him stating the the BJP when elected to power will “kill” TMC workers.
(This claim was first debunked by fact-checking website BOOM.)
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