By Sk Badiruddin
An unrelated video of alcohol being served to people wearing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) caps has been shared on social media with a false claim that the incident is from Telangana where the party hosted its national executive meeting on July 3.
The national executive meeting was hosted as an organisational programme in Hyderabad, ahead of the assembly polls in the state. Prime Minster Narendra Modi was present as the chief guest in the event. Several party functionaries, including senior leaders, also attended the event.
BOOM found that the video dates back to December, 2021 when Indian National Congress alleged that alcohol was served before a rally held by national BJP President JP Nadda in Uttarakhand .
The video has been shared on Facebook in Hindi with a caption that reads, "BJP worker distributing liquor to the hired crowd after Narendra Modi's Telangana rally. People do not come to BJP rallies. BJP leaders distribute alcohol and money to pull crowd."
(Original text in Hindi: नरेंद्र मोदी की तेलंगाना रैली के बाद भाडे़ पर आयी भीड़ को दारू बाँटता भाजपा कार्यकर्ता भाजपा की रैलियों में जनता आती नही भाजपाई नेता शासन प्रशासन को लगाकर शराब पैसा बाँटकर की भीड लाते हैं)
Watch the video here and here.
The video has been shared on Facebook with the same claim.
The video was also shared on Twitter by lawyer Prashant Bhushan. BOOM has earlier fact checked Bhushan for sharing misinformation. Read here and here.
Click here to see the archived Tweet.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on Google with the keyframes of the video and found that the video is not related to the recent national executive meeting from Telangana.
Hindi Media outlet Dainik Bhaskar reported about the video on December 20, 2021. According to the article, several Congress leaders alleged that the video was shot in Uttarakhand before an organisational event of BJP where its national president JP Nadda took part.
The same video was posted on Instagram by Youth Congress President Srinivas BV on December 20, 2021. Srinivas alleged that alcohol was distributed in Haridwar to 'pull crowd in JP Nadda's rally.'
Web portalTen News and UP Tak reported the same video sourcing it to Twitter handle of the Indian National Congress for Uttar Pradesh on their YouTube channel on December 21, 2021.
BOOM was not independently able to verify the video, but the same is present on the internet since 2021.
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