By Hazel Gandhi
A video of a man doing Garba is viral online with the false claim that it shows Prime Minister Narendra Modi performing the dance.
BOOM found that the video misidentified the man as PM Modi-- in reality, the video shows the PM's lookalike Vikas Mahante.
Garba is a traditional Gujarati folk dance performed mainly during the festival of Navratri. The 30-second clip purportedly shows PM Modi doing Garba and is being shared on X with the caption, "Is that PM Modi Dancing Garbha ? Or is it his LOOK ALIKE or DEEP FAKE ? Nice Moves, Mr. 2024 🤩"
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video shows PM Modi's lookalike Vikas Mahante at a Diwali event in London.
We scanned the comments under the viral videos and found that several users had pointed out how the man in the video was not PM Modi but his lookalike.
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We than looked up Vikas Mahante's social media profile and found that he had recently attended a Diwali event in London. A video on his Instagram page shared on November 8, 2023 had visuals that resembled the viral video. The video was captioned "Chief Guest At London Diwali Mela" and showed Mahante arriving at the event, interacting with the people there and waving at the crowd from the stage.
The background and outfits worn by the attendees shown in the viral video and the video shared by Mahante were an exact match. Below is a comparison between the two:
We also found a Facebook post that carried an invite of the event held on 4 and 5 November at Harrow Leisure Centre in the UK. The invite carried a photo of Mahante and stated that he was attending the event along with Parvez Kazi, a lookalike of actor Salman Khan. The post was shared on October 13 by Manjula Madhaparia, one of the organisers of the event.
Click here to view the post.
BOOM reached out to Vikas Mahante who said, "The person in the viral video is me. This video is from an event I attended in London on November 4 and 5."
Mahante also shared pictures of the event with BOOM.
We also found several that one of the organisers of the event, Pankkaj Sodha, had shared several other videos and photos from the two-day event showing Vikas Mahante, including the viral video. Click here and here to see other posts from the event.
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