Old Video of Scindia Mistakenly Asking to Vote for Cong Linked to UP Polls

The video was from November 2020 when Scindia was campaigning for BJP candidate Imarti Devi in Madhya Pradesh.

Fact-Check | Jyotiraditya Scindia didn't ask people to vote for Congress while campaigning in Uttar Pradesh for 2022 UP polls.

(Photo: The Quint)

An old video showing a speech of BJP leader and Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has gone viral with a false claim that the minister mistakenly asked people to vote for Congress while campaigning for the ongoing 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

We found that the video was from October 2020 when Scindia was campaigning for BJP candidate Imarti Devi in Madhya Pradesh's Dabra. While it is true that he did inadvertently ask people to vote for Congress, he immediately corrected himself and asked people to vote for the BJP.

Scindia had resigned from the Congress party earlier that year in March along with 22 of his loyal MLAs, which led to the collapse of the Congress government in MP.

CLAIM

Those sharing the viral video said, "उत्तरप्रदेश में बौखला गए है आख़िरकार #Scindia का पुराना प्यार निकल ही आया. इसे कहते हैं असली कांग्रेसी तुम छोड़ कर जा तो सकते हो मगर भुला नहीं सकते हो".

[Translation: Finally the old love of Scindia has come out in Uttar Pradesh. It is called real Congressman, you can leave the party but you can not forget it.]

In the video, Scindia was heard saying, "…close your fists and assure us that on the 3rd, the 'hand' button will be pressed and Cong… the lotus button will be pressed…"

An archive of the post can be found here. 

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

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We conducted a keyword search for "Scindia slip of tongue" and found news reports published on 1 November 2020 that talked about the goof up.

A report in The Indian Express said that Scindia was campaiging in Madhya Pradesh for BJP candidate Imarti Devi, who was contesting on the party's ticket for the by-elections. The by-elections were held on 3 November 2020.

Madhya Pradesh Congress' Twitter handle took a jibe at Scindia and shared the video on 31 October and said that "the people of Madhya Pradesh assure you that they will hit the hand symbol on 3 November".

A link to the archive can be found here.

Several other news reports also talked about Scindia's slip of tongue.

Evidently, an old video showing Scindia's slip of tongue has been linked with the ongoing Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

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