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)

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

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

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)

 

मोदी जी ने हरिभाऊ को इस मीटिंग के बाद
जेल में भेज दिया
क्या ये सही है।।

Posted by लोकतंत्र बचाओ on Sunday, February 7, 2021

Fact-check

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

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.

Donate to Alt News!
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.

Donate Now

Tagged:
About the Author

Kinjal Parmar holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. However, her keen interest in journalism, drove her to pursue journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. At Alt News since 2019, she focuses on authentication of information which includes visual verification, media misreports, examining mis/disinformation across social media. She is the lead video producer at Alt News and manages social media accounts for the organization.