No, Arvind Kejriwal did not say that Virat Kohli was from Koli community

A 38-second video clip featuring Aam Aadmi Party leader and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is circulating widely on social media. In the clip, Kejriwal praises the Koli community and refers to a cricketer from the community who has performed well. Several users have claimed that he was referring to cricketer Virat Kohli, accusing the AAP leader of making an error.

Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha national secretary Tajinder Bagga shared the clip on February 26, attributing a quote to Kejriwal in the caption. At the time of writing, the post had garnered over 470,000 views and close to 450 reposts. (Archive)

Virat Kohli belongs to the Koli Samaj, and he has brought glory to the Koli community across the world.- Kejriwal pic.twitter.com/xGbEB2Rllw

— Tajinder Bagga (@TajinderBagga) February 26, 2026

Pro-BJP X user The Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues) also posted the same video on February 26 with the same caption as used by Bagga. (Archive)

It should be noted that this page has been fact-checked by Alt News several times in the past.

Virat Kohli belongs to the Koli Samaj, and he has brought glory to the Koli community across the world.- Kejriwal

pic.twitter.com/zVUu4l8XPR

— The Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues) February 26, 2026

News outlet News24 also shared the viral clip on X on February 26, and mentioned the same “quote” as above in Hindi, attributing it to Kejriwal. The caption said, “‘Cricket player Virat Kohli, is from the Koli community’ — said AAP national coordinator Arvind Kejriwal at an event”. The page later deleted its post.

Several other users, such as @MumbaichaDon, @pawangoel_bjp and journalist @SachinGuptaUP, shared the same clip amplifying the claim that Kejriwal had said Virat Kohli was from the Koli community. Below are a few instances.

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Fact Check

To verify the claim, we closely reviewed the viral clip and found that at no point does Arvind Kejriwal mention Virat Kohli by name. While he refers to a cricketer from the Koli community, no individual is identified in the clip.

We then conducted a keyword search on YouTube to locate the full version of the speech. This led us to a longer video uploaded on the Aam Aadmi Party’s official channel on February 22, titled “Grand mass marriage ceremony organised by Koli community in Gujarat | Arvind Kejriwal | CM Bhagwant Mann.”

In the full video, Kejriwal is seen addressing a mass wedding event in Gujarat organised by the Veer Mandhata Koli Samaj. Around the 3:18 mark, he says the Koli community has consistently played a proactive role in social work across Gujarat, Delhi and the rest of the country, and has contributed significantly to the state’s development.

The portion that has gone viral begins at around 3:57. Here, Kejriwal says that children from the Koli community are “brilliant, hard-working and patriotic,” adding that with the right opportunities, education and resources, they can achieve great success. He then refers to a cricketer from the community “who is making India known worldwide,” but does not name any individual.

Throughout the video, at no point did Kejriwal mention Virat Kohli. In the end, he attributes the cricketer comment to someone else. To check that, we looked into other speeches from the event.

We also found a video of Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann from the same event, uploaded by the YouTube channel Nirbhay News Gopi Ghanghar. In the clip, around the 2:21 mark, Mann refers to former England cricketer Vikram Solanki.

“I am a huge sports lover. There is a player named Vikram Solanki who played very well for the England cricket team. Initially, I only knew that he was from Gujarat, and later I learned that he belongs to the Koli community. This community is spread all over the world,” Mann says.

To sum up, Arvind Kejriwal did not claim cricketer Virat Kohli ailed from the Koli community. Speaking at the same event as the former Delhi CM, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann pointed out the former English cricketer Vikram Solanki wad from the Koli community. Kejriwal made an allusion to this in his speech.