A video of Aaj Tak anchor Chitra Tripathi, where she can be heard talking about the INDIA bloc's lead against the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the upcoming general elections, is being shared on social media.
What does Tripathi say?: She begins by saying that all the surveys being conducted in the country pinched Prime Minister Narendra Modi like "arrows".
She emphasises that this has awakened the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Next, she talks about a News 24 poll which surveyed the public about the 2024 elections. She said, "This survey revealed that more than 80 per cent of the people believed that the opposition alliance was the dominant party. NDA was at only 14 per cent votes."
Tripathi says that this survey has brought uneasiness among BJP leaders. It is also proof that the people of the country are now fed up with the Prime Minister.
To conclude, she points out the shortcomings of the Modi government. Tripathi listed inflation, unemployment, farmers' issues, women's safety, crushing of dissent and catering to only the rich as problems in the country.
Lastly, she says, "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India." (India will unite, India will win)
What did the users say?: Those sharing have written whether it was true that the NDA was 'losing.' They also wrote that the "BJP has stopped their payment due to fear of defeat."
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
This post recorded 1.2 million views at the time of writing this story. (Archives of similar views can be found here and here.)
What is the truth?: The video is edited. The audio has been added to Tripathi's video to make the false claim.
The audio has been taken from a video of the Congress party which dates back to 2023.
Whereas, Tripathi's video is from an episode of her show 'Dangal' which is aired on Aaj Tak. The episode is also from 2023.
How did we find out?: We checked the audio and the video separately and found the following:
AUDIO: At first, we watched the entire video in which Tripathi closes by saying, "Judega Bharat, Jeetega India." (India will unite, India will win).
This is a slogan of the INDIA bloc. Hence, we undertook a keyword search using the words in the viral video and came across a YouTube video on Congress's channel from 19 July 2023.
The audio in the video is the same as the viral video.
Even the images used in the viral video have been taken from this video.
Here is a comparison between a visual used the viral video and Congress's video.
(Source: Altered by The Quint)
VIDEO: We divided the viral video into multiple keyframes and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.
We came across an episode of Tripathi's show 'Dangal' from 21 July 2023 on Aaj Tak's YouTube channel, in which she can be seen in the same outfit.
We compared the frames of both the videos and found similarities. The hand movements and facial movements in these frame match with one another.
Here is a comparison between the viral video and Aaj Tak's video.
(Source: Altered by The Quint)
We noticed the similarities in both videos from 2:08 minutes of Aaj Tak's video.
In this episode, she can be seen calling out Trinamool Congress's (TMC) Monojit Mandal for speaking rudely to the anchor. She can also be heard defending her channel for talking about Manipur violence.
Tripathi's Response: Taking to her official X (formerly Twitter) account, Chitra's reposted user AK Stalin's viral post and called it "fake."
She also said that, "my video is being misused," and called for police action against it.
News24's Survey: The survey in question is an X poll conducted by News24 on 18 July 2023.
Conclusion: It is clear that the viral video is fake. The audio from Congress's video has been added onto Chitra Tripathi's video to make a misleading claim.
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