Pakistan: A video of opposition MPs shouting and interrupting the speech of their foreign minister in Pakistan’s Parliament is viral in India with false claims. Many Indian media outlets have falsely reported the incident that happened in Pakistan’s Parliament on 28th Oct 2020.
Rajat Sharma, the chief editor and chairman of India TV, reported that Opposition in Pakistan’s Parliament chanted “Modi, Modi” chants. India TV from its official Twitter handle shared the video of Rajat Sharma’s report on the incident with a caption, “Exclusive: Why some MPs in Pakistan parliament shouted ‘Modi, Modi’ “. Archived here
Exclusive: Why some MPs in Pakistan parliament shouted ‘Modi, Modi’ #AajKiBaat @RajatSharmaLive pic.twitter.com/AZHeyDbKhc
— India TV (@indiatvnews) October 28, 2020
Times now has also published an article, “Pakistan Parliament reverberates with ‘Modi, Modi’ chants; Foreign Minister Qureshi lashes out in anger”.
Journalist and Editor of NewsNation, Deepak Chaurasia has also shared the viral video from his verified Twitter account with a caption, “लो भाई पाकिस्तान की संसद में लगे मोदी-मोदी के नारे। अभी तो यह झांकी है लाहौर कराची बाक़ी है (Lo Bhai Modi-Modi slogans in Pakistan’s Parliament. It is now a tableau Lahore Karachi is due.). The tweet has garnered more than 2.4k retweets and 8k likes.
लो भाई पाकिस्तान की संसद में लगे मोदी-मोदी के नारे। अभी तो यह झांकी है लाहौर कराची बाक़ी है💪💪@narendramodi pic.twitter.com/YUu801Xy2d
— Deepak Chaurasia (@DChaurasia2312) October 29, 2020
FactO Check
When we came across this video, we tried to listen to the audio clearly. After repeatedly hearing the audio and the background noise, one can actually hear the MPs in Pakistan’s Parliament were not chanting “Modi, Modi”, instead, they were chanting “Voting-Voting“.
What actually happened?
According to an article (“NA unanimously adopts resolution against blasphemous sketches after noisy session”), published by Dawn, a Pakistan’s news portal, the National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution condemning the publication of blasphemous caricatures in France and the “resurgence of Islamophobic acts” in some countries, reported Dawn.
The ruckus started when the ruling party and opposition wanted to pass their own versions of resolutions condemning the blasphemous caricatures in France. When the foreign minister Qureshi started reading out the ruling party’s resolution, the opposition has started “Voting Voting” chants demanding to pass the resolution presented by the opposition.
Delhi based journalist Aditya Raj has also called the claim of India TV is false.
Rajat ji, Pakistan MPs are chanting ‘Voting Voting’. Not ‘Modi Modi’. Watch the full video. Khwaja Asif demands voting in the house before Shah Mehmood Qureshi begins speaking. That triggers sloganeering. Speaker says, voting will happen to calm tempers. Please make correction. https://t.co/wafEPAOp6u
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) October 29, 2020
Conclusion: Upon repeatedly listening to the audio clip and confirming it from various sources, we can say that the chants by the opposition is “Voting voting”, but not “Modi Modi”. So the above claims by some popular news channels and journalists is found to be misleading and false.
