Lalu Yadav’s Old Clip Criticising Congress Viral as Recent Ahead of Bihar Polls

This clip is from 2021, ahead of Bihar’s bypolls, when there were tensions within the Mahagathbandhan on two seats.

Fact-Check: This video is from 2021 and not linked to the upcoming Bihar elections. 

(Source: The Quint) 

In the run-up to Bihar's assembly elections, a video of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav is circulating on social platforms, where he can be heard criticising the Congress party.

What does he say?: "What is the Congress alliance? What is the coalition of Congress? To lose the election, we would have handed it to Congress."

The claim: Those sharing this video have claimed that the opposition alliance has split before the upcoming Bihar elections.

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: X/Screenshot) 

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Is the claim true?: No, the claim is misleading as this the video of Yadav criticising the alliance with the Congress is from 2021, ahead of the by-elections on two seats.

What we found: At first, we ran a relevant keyword search to check if there had been any recent tiffs between the opposition parties in Bihar however, we did not find anything.

• We, then, divided the clip into multiple screenshots and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.

• It led us to a report by Times Now from 24 October 2021. The report featured a frame similar to the viral video.

Here is the preview of the report.

(Source: Times Now/Screenshot) 

• It reported that Yadav's statement came after tensions emerged between the Congress and the RJD when the former fielded its own candidate from the Kusheshwar Asthan assembly constituency in the October 2021 bypolls.

• Yadav also slammed the Congress for their performance in the then Bihar elections which concluded in November 2020.

• Additionally, India Today reported on 4 October 2021 that the Congress had presented a deadline to the RJD prior to the Kusheshwar Asthan bypoll, warning that it would run candidates against RJD for both the Kusheshwar Asthan and Tarapur Assembly seats if the party did not retract its nominee Ganesh Bharti.

• The NDTV also reported on 23 October 2021 that the RJD declared its candidates for both positions without consulting Congress.

Conclusion: An old video of Yadav criticising the Congress in 2021 has gone viral as recent on social media.

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