Old clip of street brawl resurfaced as 'attack on ruling party members' in India

Published on September 2, 2025 at 04:11
3 min read
By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India

Footage of a fight has been misrepresented on social media as local residents beating workers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar ahead of an election in the eastern Indian state expected later this year. The clip actually shows a protest in the Telangana state in 2022 against Prime Minister Narendra Modi that turned violent.

"In Bihar, people are voting for the BJP in large numbers using sticks, with votes coming from every street," reads a Hindi-language Facebook post shared August 20, 2025, taking a jibe at the BJP.

It also shares a video showing men in pink scarves fighting another group in saffron scarves -- sported mainly by BJP workers -- in a public square.

Screenshot of the false post taken August 25, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The video has circulated with similar claims elsewhere on Facebook and X.

Bihar is expected to hold an election later this year, where the opposition Congress party will challenge the state's ruling coalition formed by the Janata Dal United party and the BJP (archived link ).

The Congress party alleged that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had embarked on a "mass disenfranchisement" exercise after it gave voters in the state just weeks to prove their citizenship, requiring documents that few possess in a registration revamp.

The ECI has called the accusation "false and misleading".

While Indian news agency ANI reported that BJP and Congress party workers fought one another in Bihar on August 29 over alleged derogatory remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the video in the false post is actually from 2022 (archived link).

A Google reverse image search on keyframes from the clip led to a similar video Times of India published on February 10, 2022 (archived link).

The outlet says the clip shows members of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) -- which ruled the state at the time -- protesting Modi's comment that the parliamentary bill creating the Telangana state in 2014 was passed without debate (archived link).

The brawl broke out after TRS rallyists tried to burn an effigy of Modi.

Screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (L) and the video shared in Times of India report

A local media report on the fight, livestreamed on February 9, 2022, shows similar visuals (archived link).

Images on Google Maps Street View also confirmed the video was filmed in the Jangaon district of Telangana (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and Google Maps street imagery of the area

AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to the upcoming Bihar election here and here.

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