As the elections in Uttar Pradesh are underway, a video of a mob chasing and attacking an SUV car is being shared on social media with the claim that the state's energy minister Shrikant Sharma's car was attacked recently by people due to high electricity rates in the state.
However, we found that the claim is false and the politician in the video is former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament (MP) from Jharkhand's Koderma, Ravindra Kumar Ray.
Amid the ongoing language row in the state of Jharkhand, Ray had a narrow escape in Bokaro in January when protestors had attacked his vehicle.
CLAIM
The video is shared by former UP tourism minister and Samajwadi Party leader Om Prakash Singh taking a dig at Sharma saying if "electricity rates are so high, people will chase you".
The video has over 25,000 views and 200 shares at the time of writing this article.
An archive of the post can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We fragmented the video using InVid, a Google Chrome extension for video verification, and followed it up with a reverse search on some.
A Google reverse image search result led us to a video on YouTube published by a media channel named 'News Ranchi'. The caption in Hindi read, "पूर्व सांसद रविंद्र राय पर हमला, प्रदर्शनकारियों ने वाहन का शीशा तोड़ा.नेमप्लेट उखाड़ा"
(Translation: Former MP Ravindra Ray attacked, protestors broke the windshield of the vehicle. The nameplate was uprooted.)
Taking this as a cue, we conducted a keyword search on Youtube to look for news reports about the incident.
A report on the YouTube channel of Hindi news daily 'Live Hindustan' said that while going for a meeting in Dhanbad, protestors had attacked the Scorpio vehicle of Ray in Bokaro, over the language row in the state.
A The Times of India report read that ex-president of the state BJP unit had a narrow escape in Bokaro on 30 January after a section of protestors, demanding exclusion of Maghi and Bhojpuri in regional languages list in the state’s new recruitment policy, had charged at his vehicle near the Telmachcho bridge.
Ray had also filed an FIR against unidentified persons regarding the attack, the report read.
We also found the video posted on Ray's official Facebook profile on 30 January. The video has over four lakh views.
He wrote the caption in Hindi, "जो लोग कह रहे हैं कि मैं आंदोलन को बदनाम कर रहा हूँ उनके लिए यह वीडियो साझा कर रहा हूँ , अगर आज ड्राइवर ने सूझबूझ नहीं दिखाई होती तो पता नहीं आज मैं आपके साथ यह साझा कर भी पाता या नहीं।"
(Translation: I am sharing the video for those who say I am defaming the movement. If my driver didn't handle the situation patiently today, I am not sure if I would have been here to write this.)
Ray had posted the video on his Facebook profile on 30 January.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
We also found news reports about the attack in Hindi dailies like Amar Ujala and Dainik Bhaskar.
Clearly, a video of the former MP being attacked in Jharkhand is being shared on social media with the false claim that the UP energy minister was attacked ahead of the polls.
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