Fact Check: AP free bus travel scheme for women triggers fight for seats? No, here are the facts
A video claiming to show a fight among female passengers inside a bus after the Andhra Pradesh government’s free bus travel scheme for women was launched is circulating on social media.
By M Ramesh Naik
Claim:The video depicts a fight among women passengers inside a bus over seats after the AP government launched the free bus travel scheme.
Fact:The claim is false. The video is from Telangana and dates to January 2024. It has no connection to Andhra Pradesh’s free bus travel scheme.
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday launched the ‘Stree Shakti’ scheme, which provides free bus travel for women, girls and transgender persons holding AP domicile.
The scheme was unveiled at a public event in Amaravati in the presence of NDA leaders, including Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan and Minister Nara Lokesh. It will be applicable across several APSRTC bus services.
In this context, a video showing women fighting inside a bus is going viral on social media, with the claim that it was recorded after the Andhra Pradesh government launched its free bus travel scheme for women. The posts allege that the incident occurred on a bus plying between Vizianagaram and Kothavalasa.
A Facebook user shared the video captioning, “A fight broke out between female passengers for seats in a bus due to the recently launched free bus scheme in AP. The incident took place in a bus going from Vizianagaram to Kothavalasa.” (Translated from Telugu) (Archive)
A similar post can be seen here. (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is neither from Andhra Pradesh nor related to the recently launched free bus travel scheme.
We extracted keyframes from the viral video and performed a reverse image search. This led us to a Zee News report published in January 2024, which carried the same visuals and identified the incident as having occurred in Telangana.
We also found the full video uploaded to YouTube in January 2024 with the title, ‘Ladies Fight in Free Bus at SangaReddy To Zaheerabad.’
Further, we also found the Andhra Pradesh government Fact-Check post on X stating, “In Telangana state, a fight that broke out among women on a bus on January 1, 2024, is being falsely propagated as women travelling for free under the Stree Shakti scheme in Andhra Pradesh fighting with each other. This is completely untrue. Strict actions will be taken against such fake posts that tarnish the government's reputation.” This clarifies that the footage is from Telangana and not Andhra Pradesh.
The viral video does not show women fighting inside a bus in Andhra Pradesh after the rollout of the State’s free bus travel scheme. The footage is from Telangana and dates to January 2024. The claim is false.
