A video of Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Keshav Prasad Maurya, is viral on social media in which he can be heard saying in Hindi: “यह देश जानता है माननीय प्रधानमंत्री श्री नरेंद्र मोदी के रहते हुआ ना तो कभी किसानों का हित हो सकता है ना ही देश का हित हो सकता है ना देशवासियों का हित हो सकता है।” (Translation: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm, neither the farmers can be benefitted, nor country and its citizens can be benefitted. )
However, Facto News found the video is old and is very cleverly edited.
The video was posted on Twitter on 12 January 2022 by Rohan Gupta, Chairman of Congress party social media department. The caption along with the post reads: “अब तो दिल की सच्चाई ज़ुबान पर आ ही गई !” (Translation: Now the truth of the heart has come on the tongue!)
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
At the time of writing this article, Gupta’s post had a very high engagement. The video was viewed over 32 thousand times, liked over 5 thousand times, retweeted over 1800 times and quote-tweeted 75 times.
The same edited video was posted by Preeti Chobey, a verified handle on 4 February 2021. The caption along with the post reads: “अरे देखिए क्या बोल रहे हैं उत्तर प्रदेश के उपमुख्यमन्त्री ने कहा प्रधानमंत्री श्री नरेन्द्र मोदी जी के रहते हुए, न तो किसानों का हित हो सकता है, न ही देश का हित हो सकता है!” (Translation: see what Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh is saying, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm, neither the farmers can be benefitted, nor country and its citizens can be benefitted.)
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
We also found the edited video was viral on Facebook in February 2021.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
FactO Check:
Using the InVid Chrome extension, we fragmented the video into keyframes and performed reverse Google search of the frames, which led us to a Twitter post of posted on 4 February by Rameshwar Thakur. Thakur in the post claims that the word “अहित” was edited to “हित” in the video.
कुछ लोग राजनीतिक लाभ के लिए मारने जी के कहे हुए शब्द अहित को हित बताकर गलत मानसिकता का प्रचार प्रसार कर रहे हैं जबकि वीडियो में साफ-साफ हिंदू हृदय सम्राट केशव प्रसाद मौर्य अहित बोल रहे हैं गंदी मानसिकता का उपज है pic.twitter.com/iZS7yEr2QT
— Rameshwar thakur (@Rameshw90326864) February 4, 2021
Taking a cue from this, we did a keyword search and found a 24-minute long video live-streamed on the Facebook account of the Keshav Prasad Maurya on 3 February 2021. Maurya speaks very passionately in favour of PM Modi, the farm law(which has been withdrawn now) and his political party BJP.
We found the viral video is clipped from this video at 0:59 seconds to 1:25 seconds and the claim of Rameshwar Thakur is true that the word “अहित” was edited to “हित”, thereby completely changing the meaning.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
We also found a news report of News18 published on 5 February 2021 which says that the video of Maurya was edited and FIR will be filed against those behind it.
Conclusion:
With the above findings, it is evident that the viral video was mischievously edited to mislead the public.