No, Anupriya Patel Hasn't Extended Support to 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'

The three-year-old video was taken when Anurpriya Patel's Apna Dal (Sonelal) had a rift with the BJP.

Fact-Check | An old video of Anupriya Patel has gone viral by linking it with the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video showing Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry of India and National President of Apna Dal (Sonelal) Anupriya Patel expressing displeasure with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and talking about taking another course of action has gone viral.

The claims are being linked with the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' and suggest that Patel was expressing her support for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

However, we found that the video was from February 2019 and not recent, as stated in the claim. We found news reports about Patel's interview and according to them, AD(S) and BJP, who formed an alliance in 2014, had a rift in 2019 with the former accusing the latter of ignoring regional parties.

However, the party didn't part ways and entered a pre-poll alliance ahead of the 2019 general elections.

CLAIM

The claim with the viral video, when translated from Hindi, said, "BJP's alliance broken, Apna Dal leader and Union Minister Anupriya Patel extends support to Rahul Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'. There are reports about the BJP not forming the government in 2024. The whole country is upset by PM Modi and CM Yogi. BJP's allies are now worried."

A link to the archive can be found here. 

In the video, Patel can be seen expressing her displeasure with the BJP, and saying, “We have faced some problems with the BJP. We talked to the high command, but there was no solution to those problems. This proves that the BJP is not worried about its allies. Now we are free to choose our own path."

Archives of more such posts on Facebook and Twitter can be found here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We looked for Patel's interview on Nation TV and found the video published on a Facebook page with the same name. The same video was uploaded multiple times, with the first one being in April, months before Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' began.

We then conducted a keyword search about Patel's split with the BJP and found a report published in Quint Hindi on 22 February 2019. We also found the viral video in the report.

According to the report, AD(S) had expressed "displeasure" with the ruling party for allegedly not taking care of its alliance partners. Patel had threatened to leave the alliance over the same and said that they were "open" to taking their own course of action in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The same report was published in other news publications as well.

However, AD(S) later decided to stick to the alliance and got two seats in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2019 general elections.

We also conducted a keyword search for Patel's reaction to the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'. We found a report published in Hindi daily Jagran that said Patel had said that the Gandhis' rally wouldn't make a difference to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and added that they would form the government under the leadership of PM Modi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Evidently, an old video of Apna Dal's Patel was shared by falsely linking it with the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Yatra'.

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