An apparent clip from an episode of the television game show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ (KBC) is gaining a lot of traction on social media. In the footage, host Amitabh Bachchan asks contestant Shashwat Goyal the seventeenth question, worth the highest prize money in the show. The question was which government had made the Mahakal Corridor of Ujjain. The options are A. Shivraj government, B. Digvijay government, C. Kamal Nath government and D. Uma Bharti government. The contestant chooses Option A i.e., the Shivraj government, after which Bachchan tells him it is the wrong answer, the correct one being Option C i.e., the Kamal Nath government.
An X (formerly Twitter) user named Anurag Verma shared the video and expressed sympathy for the contestant who had apparently lost Rs 7.5 crore. He claimed that blind followers of the BJP IT cell had spread false propaganda that the Mahakal Corridor had been built by Modi and Shivraj only. However, it was built by the Kamal Nath administration. He later deleted the tweet. (Archived link)
Another user named Ajitesh Bansal promoted the clip with a similar claim. (Archived link)
A Twitter user named Shantanu also shared the clip and accompanying claim. (Archived link)
The video is widespread across social media platforms with this claim.
Fact Check
After taking a closer look at the viral video, it becomes evident that it is doctored. Amitabh Bachchan’s voice sounds completely different. When we performed a search using keywords related to the Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) show on YouTube, we found a video of the full episode from Season 14 of the show. In this episode, contestant Shashwat Goyal played till the seventeenth and final question with the highest prize money attached to it. However, his last answer was wrong, and as per the rules of the show, he won Rs. 75 lakh instead of the highest prize money of Rs. 7.5 crore.
At the 1:11:41 mark in this video, host Bachchan asked the final question to Goyal. The question is, “Which British military contingent was given the motto ‘Primus in Indis’ because it was the first to serve in India?” The options included, Option A: 41st (Welch) Regiment of Foot, Option B: 1st Coldstream Guards, Option C: 5th Light Infantry and Option D: 39th Regiment of Foot. Shashwat had chosen option A, which was the incorrect answer. The right answer to this question was Option D.
In other words, during Season 14 of the television game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, the seventeenth and final question presented to a contestant was not about the Mahakal Corridor, and neither did the options include the Shivraj government or Kamal Nath government. The video in circulation is doctored. The claim that the contestant lost Rs 7.5 crore due to false propaganda about the Mahakal Corridor by the BJP IT Cell is baseless.
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