Satirical video believed as PM Modi evading question on petrol price hike

A video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacting with a group of people in Marathi is generating a lot of buzz on Facebook and Twitter. In the clip, a man named Hari brings up a question on the increasing petrol prices but the prime minister does not respond to him and asks him to sit down. Twitter user @AzyConTrolI tweeted the clip on February 7. Congress social media department national convenor Saral Patel quote-tweeted the post with the caption, “Hari bhau got no chill!”. The visuals had amassed more than 2 lakh views at the time of writing. (Archive link)

Hari bhau got no chill! 😂 pic.twitter.com/4knpu8hTeh

— Saral Patel Andolanjivi (@SaralPatel) February 7, 2021

Vishal Chaudhary, national general secretary of NSUI, tweeted this video as well. (Archive link)

Hari bhau got no chill! 😂 pic.twitter.com/xIpKji7kSh

— Vishal Chaudhary 🇮🇳 (@VishalcINC) February 8, 2021

Twitter user @Sadakat_pathan was also among the users who shared the clip. (Archive link)

अंधभक्तों ध्यान से देखें… 😂😂😂
Hari bhau got no chill! 😂😂😂@LambaAlka@DrArchanaINC@ManojMehtamm@GauravPandhipic.twitter.com/BuNkYmUJTc

— Sadakat Pathan INC 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳 (@Sadakat_pathan) February 7, 2021

A Facebook page called ‘लोकतंत्र बचाओ’ (Save Democracy) posted the visuals and wrote, “Is it true that Mr. Modi sent Mr. Hari to jail after this meeting?” (Archive link)

Fact-check

In a reply to his earlier tweet, @AzyConTrolI wrote that the clip was put together merely for entertainment purposes.

The video above is edited ofc and was done merely for entertainment purpose. Here’s the original link :https://t.co/gE6zxWJkvd

— Azy (@AzyConTrolI) February 7, 2021

He also shared an ABP Manjha video story dated May 29, 2018, which confirmed that the viral video had been edited.

Alt News performed a keyword search and came across another ABP Manjha video story. In this video report from May 29, 2018, the scenes from the viral clip are seen at the 0:27 mark. In the original video, when the PM asks something in Marathi, a person named Mr. Hari responds with, “Namaste, Sir”. However, in the viral video, he says “Ram…Ram” in response. Furthermore, in the ABP report, Mr. Hari also says “Okay, Sir”. In place of this, he mentions the rising petrol prices in the viral clip. It is noteworthy that in the video report, Mr. Hari does not say anything related to petrol. Further on in the full-length clip, he is asked about the Mudra scheme and his work.

PMO India had also uploaded this video of Prime Minister Modi’s interaction with Mr. Hari.

In addition, the text “Lav_Ray _To _Vhidio” appears as a watermark on the clip. We discovered that this was the name of an Instagram account that makes humorous videos for entertainment. However, we did not find this particular video on its page.

To sum it up, a humorous video edited for entertainment purposes was falsely circulated on social media as real. Users were sharing the clip to suggest that PM Modi ignored a common man’s question about increasing petrol prices.