A video of Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav’s road show is going viral on social media, in which he is seen accepting public applause on his campaign vehicle. ‘Kanauj Live’ is written on the video. The video claims that the public threw slippers and shoes at him during the campaign.
The handle ‘Times of BSP’ on Satya is known how they are helping BJP all this is being done as per 2027 planning. Archived version of the post here see See other posts shared with similar claims here, here and here.
However, the viral claim is misleading. During a road show in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, people welcomed Akhilesh Yadav by throwing flowers and garlands instead of shoes and slippers.
How do we find the truth?
Looking closely at the viral video, we found that it has ‘@vikashyadavauraiyawale’ written along with the Instagram logo. Usually, this happens when the original video is downloaded from the Instagram user’s account. Taking a cue from this, we searched for the same username on Instagram and found the account of a person named Vikas Yadav. We found a viral video uploaded to this account on May 2, 2024 (archive here).
This video is of slightly better quality than the viral post. When we slowed down the video, it came to light that people threw flower garlands at Akhilesh Yadav. We don’t see any shoes or slippers anywhere in the entire video.
When and where is the video from?
We searched based on information from viral videos and found a video (archived here) streamed live on the Samajwadi Party’s YouTube channel on 27 May 2024, showing a woman in a white and red sari, who is the fifth member of the party. Rekha Verma is seen with Akhilesh Yadav, SP MLA from Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency, an assembly – Bidhuna. It can also be seen in viral videos of 10 seconds duration.
Many in this road show Photos And we also found the videos on Samajwadi Party’s official Facebook, where they were uploaded on April 27, 2024. In which MLA Rekha Verma can be clearly seen in the same outfit with Akhilesh Yadav. in posts It is stated that the scenes depicted in it are from Rasulabad in Kannauj.
We spoke to MLA Rekha Verma, seen with Akhilesh Yadav in the video, who denied the claims of throwing shoes and slippers and said, “People were welcoming Hon’ble Akhilesh Yadav with flower garlands. The video clearly shows that there are flower garlands.” He further said, “This video is from Gehra airstrip to Yakubpur and it falls in the assembly constituency of Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency. The Gehra airstrip area is the border of Bidhuna and Rasulabad.”
While searching for videos of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s road show contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Kannauj, we came across a live streamed video from News18 UP Uttarakhand (archive here), where people can be seen pelting Akhilesh with floral garlands. Yadav on several occasions. One such scene can be seen in the video at time slot 4.35.16.
The roadshow is covered in a video report (archive) by NDTV. In our investigation, we have not found a single report stating that people threw shoes and slippers at Akhilesh Yadav in Kannauj or at any of the recent road shows or rallies. Dainik Bhaskar in one of its reports has published a timely detailed report on Akhilesh Yadav’s road show in Kannauj. This report also does not mention any such incident.
decision
Our investigations so far make it clear that the social media user’s claim that people threw shoes and slippers at Akhilesh Yadav during his road show is false. In fact, people welcomed Akhilesh Yadav by garlanding him. So we consider the viral claim to be misleading.