By Hazel Gandhi
A screenshot showing an old X post by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is viral online with the false claim that in 2012, he criticised political leaders who refused to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
BOOM found that the claims are false and the screenshot is fabricated; Kejriwal made no such post in 2012.
The ED issued its third summons to Kejriwal to appear before the agency on January 3, 2024, after he skipped the first two summons on November 2 and December 21. He has been called in for questioning in relation to the excise policy scam case, the same case in which Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi's deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has been jailed.
Right-wing X (formerly Twitter) user Rishi Bagree shared the fabricated screenshot of Kejriwal's post which was purportedly posted on November 24, 2012 and read, "As a patriot Indian, my head hangs in shame when our corrupt leaders do not appear before ED and CBI even after multiple summons by the investigating agencies, when they should have resigned from their posts immediately as soon as the allegations were made." Bagree shared the post with the caption, "Couldn’t agree more 🙌" as a way of mocking Kejriwal for supposedly skipping the summons himself.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
BOOM has previously fact-checked several false and misleading claims made by Bagree. Read here.
Kiren Rijiju, BJP MP from Arunachal Pradesh and Minister of Earth Sciences shared the fabricated screenshot on his official Facebook page with the caption, "I agree 100% with Arvind Kejriwal."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Other Facebook posts can be seen here, here, and here.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the screenshot has been fabricated and that Kejriwal never posted this statement on his X account.
We ran an advanced search on Twitter to look for posts made by Arvind Kejriwal's official X account on the date mentioned in the screenshot, November 24, 2012. Here are the tweets made by Kejriwal on that day, none of which include any post similar to the viral screenshot:
This purported post by Kejriwal has a total character count of 257. However, until November 2017, the maximum characters allowed in a X (then Twitter) post was only 140.
We also found a clarification on X put out by AAP Delhi's social media head, Amanpreet Singh Uppal, who called the post fake.
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