CLAIM
A viral video on social media claims that Andhra Pradesh chief minister-designate YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has converted from Christianity to Hinduism. The claim along with the video reads: ‘Jagan Reddy is reconverted from *Christianity to Hinduism* by Swarupanamda Saraswati . The Swami fixed the date of his swearing in ceremony on May 30 th.’
Several social media users have shared it on Facebook with a similar claim.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim is false. This is an old video from 2016 when Jagan Mohan Reddy had performed a Hindu ritual called ‘Homam’ in Rishikesh. He had performed this ritual for getting Andhra Pradesh a special status.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We did a frame-to-frame analysis using InVID, a video verification tool, and then reverse-searched each frame on Yandex. This led us to post that reads: ‘YS Jagan @ Rishikesh: Performs Pooja for Special Status’
Then, we ran a search on YouTube using keywords ‘Jagan,’ ‘Rishikesh,’ ‘Pooja’ and ‘special status.’ This led us to a video that was shared by Sakshi TV on 9 August 2016.
This video has visuals from the viral video and claims that Reddy was performing a special pooja in Rishikesh to secure special category status for Andhra Pradesh. In another video posted by Sakshi TV, the special pooja that he is performing is Homam, a Hindu ritual.
As per NDTV, on 6 April 2019, when asked about the Congress, Reddy had said, "I believe in God. I pray to God. I read the Bible every day. Vengeance is not for me. I am forgiving and I have forgiven."
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