Fact-check: BJP leader Kalicharan Saraf misbehaved with woman on stage?

A video of a man grabbing a woman’s waist as she greets him by placing a garland around his neck has been going viral on social media. Users are claiming that the man in the video is “BJP Rajasthan MP Kalicharan Saraf”. Twitter user @JenniOfficel had tweeted the video on August 23 with this claim, where it had received over 1.63 lakh views at the time of writing. (link to the archived tweet)

Rajasthan BJP MP Kalicharan Saraf and Suman Sharma 😭😭😭😭

இவர்கள் தான் நாட்டை ஆளுகிறார்கள்👌🏻

pic.twitter.com/d0TclIf1Un

— Dr Jennifer (@JeniOfficel) August 23, 2020

Another Twitter user, @Political__Dr, had tweeted this video with the same claim. At the time of writing, it had been viewed over 1,100 times. (link to the archived tweet)

BJP. MP , Kalicharan Saraf giving ‘protection’ to women on stage!!
.
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Thank you Modi ji for giving ticket to such dedicated leaders 🙏🙏

#sorrybabu #sundayvibes pic.twitter.com/KzQ602F6F6

— Political__Dr⏺ (@Political__Dr) August 23, 2020

A Facebook page titled ‘Ravish Kumar – The Fearless Reporter’ had also posted this video on August 23 with the same claim. This video has received 19,000 views at the time of writing. (archived version of the post)

The video was also being shared with these claims on Facebook and Twitter.

Fact-check

When we ran a reverse image search of a frame from the viral video, we discovered a Facebook post from July 28, 2015. The user who had uploaded the video described the person in it as a BJP leader.

We also found a fact-check report from ABP News dated April 27, 2018. According to this report, this video was originally taken in 2014 and had also been circulating with claims of inappropriate behaviour in 2018. The report also stated that the woman in the video is Suman Sharma, former chairperson of the Rajasthan State Commission for Women, and the man with her on the stage was Ashok Garg, a BJP councillor from Jaipur. The report clarified that Sharma was not the chairperson at the time (in 2014).

The report carries the statements of Suman Sharma and Ashok Garg. At the 2:06-minute mark, Sharma says, “Nothing like that had happened, there was no such intention. I greeted him out of respect, he is the senior councillor from my area and he extended his hand towards me to express his gratitude in response. I was not insulted. The way people are making this footage viral now, they are definitely insulting as a woman. They want to use this video for political mileage. This is visible in their mindset. I want to request all those people through your channel to avoid resorting to such types of actions.” Similarly, at the 3-24-minute mark, Garg says that the two greeted each other like brother and sister. He said, “I extended my arms considering her a sister and nothing else. If something like this had happened, would the other members have allowed me to stay in the party till now?”

Suman Sharma therefore categorically denied misbehaviour by BJP councillor Ashok Garg. The video is now being shared with false claim targeting BJP MLA Kalicharan Saraf. It is noteworthy that viral claims misidentify Saraf as an MP.