Did CDS Gen Chauhan Say NDA Won Bihar Elections Due to Trishul Exercises? No!

The original video showed General Chauhan interacting at the Indian Military Heritage Festival.

Fact-Check | The video has been altered to mislead the viewers.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan, where he was heard saying that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won the Bihar elections because of Trishul exercises, is going viral on the internet.

What did the video show?: The 38-seconds-long clip showed General Chauhan saying, "As far as the issue of Bihar elections is concerned, we have sufficient evidence that the NDA alliance was able to win because of Trishul exercises by the Indian army. Prime Minister Modi and his game of saffronisation has led to a wider public demand that the Indian army gets rid of the DNA of invaders, who came to loot Indian wealth. They are also rotting our Indian army. That is why I gave the suggestion that 50% of the non-caste Hindus should be removed by 2028. Indian army needs to be shuddh for this upcoming dharamyudh against Pakistan..."

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)

The above post had gained over 25 thousand views on the platform. More archives of similar claims could be viewed here, here, and here.

What's the truth?: The video has been manipulated using the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and did not show real remarks made by General Chauhan.

How did we find that out?: On conducting a Google Lens search on the keyframes of the viral clip, we found a video published on the official X handle of ANI.

• It was posted on 15 November.

• The video's caption said, "#WATCH | Delhi: CDS Gen Anil Chauhan says, "These are my thoughts and ideas on the military, and my idea was basically to establish a connection and reach out to the middle and junior level leadership of the Indian Army... This is important because the nature and the scope of reform that we are attempting are so huge that every one of us has to be on the same page..."."

Finding the full-length segment: A second round of reverse image search directed us to the full-length video of General Chauhan, where he was speaking at the Indian Military Heritage Festival.

• The video was shared on 16 November on the official YouTube channel of Asianet News English.

• Its title that said, "CDS Gen Anil Chauhan Explains India’s ‘National Security Architecture’ Using Ops Sindoor."

• We did not find any similar remarks made by General Chauhan as claimed in the viral video. This indicated towards the possibility of the video being manipulated using the help of AI.

What did a detection tool show?: Team WebQoof passed the video through an AI detection tool named 'DeepFake-O-Meter' to further verify its authenticity.

• Three detectors conclusively showed that the video was AI.

The detectors showed that the video was AI.

(Source: DeepFake-O-Meter/Screenshot)

PIB debunks the claim: The fact-checking wing of the Press Information Bureau (PIB), on its official X handle, clarified that the video has been artificially altered using AI tools.

• The post shared on 17 November further said, " Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) has NOT made any such statement. The video has been AI-generated to spread misinformation and undermine faith in the #IndianArmedForces."

Conclusion: It is evident that the video of CDS General Anil Chauhan is AI-manipulated and does not carry real statements.

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