No, Adityanath did not threaten to set the country on fire if BJP is voted out

“अगर हमारी सरकार गीरी तो पुरे देश में आग लगा दूंगा – योगी आदित्यनाथ (If our govt is voted out of power then I will set the whole country on fire -translated)”, reads a statement ascribed to UP CM Yogi Adityanath in a supposed screengrab of a news channel. One Pinku Giri who in his bio on Facebook claims to be the Congress’s Darbhanga district IT cell head, has also shared this image. “Sensing a defeat in the general election, Yogi is revealing his true face”, posted Giri with the image.

Few more individuals and pages on Facebook have shared the same image.

On Twitter, individual users have requested Alt News to verify the statement ascribed to Yogi Adityanth.

Is this true ?? @samjawed65 @free_thinker @zoo_bear @boomlive_in @SMHoaxSlayer pic.twitter.com/CouJtlp6lw

— Future PM RELUCTANT_ECONOMIST (@Mnomics_) May 5, 2019

Morphed image

Looking at the logo shown in the screengrab, Alt News found that the screengrab of the news channel belongs to a Gujarati News channel called Mantavya News.

We found that the alleged screengrab of Mantavya News, which attributes an outrageous statement to the UP CM, is morphed. Firstly, had the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh made such a statement, it would have been featured in multiple news outlets. That fact itself should raise doubts regarding the authenticity of this screengrab. However, there are other clues in the image which show that the image is morphed.

1. The broadcaster in question here is a regional Gujarati news channel. Therefore, it is unlikely that a statement will be flashed in Hindi and not Gujarati.

Alt News contacted Deepak Rajani, the executive director of Mantavya News regarding the matter. He said, “We are a Gujarati news channel, where is the question of broadcasting news in Hindi. Somebody has morphed a screengrab of our news channel. We have never broadcasted such news. The organization is considering a legal action.”

2. If one looks closely at the screengrab, the image of Adityanath in the frame has no margin either above the image or on the left side, with the image touching the edge of the TV frame. Usually, news channels always have a margin on either side of a frame. Alt News went through several videos broadcasted on Mantavya news channel and could not find a single video where a frame has no margin on the top and on the side. Sample this screengrab from the news channel which can be seen on the left in the image below. While a regular frame from the channel has a clearly demarcated margin, the one with Yogi Adityanath in it has no margin as can be seen below.

In conclusion, a screengrab of a Gujarati news channel was morphed and an outrageous statement was falsely attributed to Yogi Adityanath. The lack of any credible news report, ascribing the said statement to Adityanath, was sufficient to discredit the veracity of this statement.