A video of BJP leader Hardik Patel is viral on social media where some people can be seen expressing their displeasure over the youth leader who shot to fame with the Patidar community movement. In the video, people can be heard saying in Gujarati, “Ask whoever you may. It will unravel with time…the case you are referring to. Watch Shehla Rashid’s interview on the Russian TV channel RT…not everything is laid out clearly in the case. You might be able to defeat an individual or a party, but you don’t have to forge an alliance with such people for that, right? Not everything is part of an FIR. What is of importance is your speech. You might have the entire world standing behind you boss, but it is out of the question to seek an alliance with others…”

Twitter user Shubham, tweeting the video, wrote, it was the public that drove away the BJP leader Hardik Patel because people of Gujarat were disgruntled with the party.

— Shubham 🇮🇳 (@shubh_ind) October 10, 2022

Hardik Patel had joined the Congress in 2019. He switched over to the BJP in June 2022. Currently, this video is being shared in light of the upcoming assembly elections in the state. User Manu Azad also tweeted the video with a similar message.

Several other users have posted this video with similar claims.

Fact-check

To verify the claims in the video, Alt News conducted related keyword searches on Youtube, which led us to a report on March 26, 2019, published in Republic World. The report mentioned that some people had objected to Hardik Patel joining the Congress in Ahmedabad.

Upon further investigation, we came across a report published by Desh Gujarat. The report mentioned that Congress leaders Hardik Patel and Alpesh Thakor were at the Prahladnagar Garden in Ahmedabad, for an interview with TV9 Gujurati. At that moment, several people out on their morning walk approached him with questions.

Gujarati channel VTV News had also reported the incident.

This shows that the video of people expressing their disapproval of Hardik Patel is at least three-year old, when he was a Congress leader. The old video is being shared in light of the upcoming Gujarat assembly elections with the false claim that Hardik is unpopular with people now.

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About the Author

Kinjal Parmar holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. However, her keen interest in journalism, drove her to pursue journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. At Alt News since 2019, she focuses on authentication of information which includes visual verification, media misreports, examining mis/disinformation across social media. She is the lead video producer at Alt News and manages social media accounts for the organization.