Video shows opposition Congress party leader criticising Indian PM Modi
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 3, 2023 at 08:52
- 3 min read
- By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India
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"What the Nepal MP said about Modi in the Parliament of Nepal," reads a Hindi-language post shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 21.
"Every Indian should watch this video every time they go to vote at a polling booth and also share it on WhatsApp numbers."
India is preparing for general elections in 2024 in which dozens of opposition parties have clubbed together to form an alliance that will battle Modi's ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (archived link).
The post, which has more than 250,000 views, shows a man criticising Modi and various Indian government policies
The video was shared in similar posts on Facebook here, here and on X here.
Indian politician
The politicians in the video appear to be wearing traditional ethnic caps common in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, a hilly state in northern India.
A keyword search on Google found the same video uploaded on the verified Facebook page of the Himachal Pradesh Congress party on March 21, 2021 (archived link).
The Facebook post -- apparently mocking Modi -- says in Hindi: "Listen all about the great and famous prime minister of the country from Kinnaur Congress MLA (Member of the Legislative Assembly) Jagat Singh Negi."
Below is a comparison of screenshots from the clip shared in false posts (left) and the video uploaded on the Facebook page of Himachal Pradesh Congress (right):
Jagat Singh Negi is a Congress party politician and a Member of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly from Kinnaur.
The Congress party wrestled power in Himachal Pradesh in the 2022 elections defeating the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party. The viral video is from a time when Congress was in opposition in the state (archived link).
Local media outlets here and here shared longer versions of Negi's 2021 speech during the budget session of the state assembly (archived links here and here).
India's Tribune news site reported that Negi is known for asking the highest number of questions in the state legislative assembly between January 2018 and 2022 (archived link).
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