Fact Check: BJP winning Delhi Polls due to Muslim vote split? Kapil Mishra’s viral clip is doctored

As Delhi votes in the 2025 Assembly elections on January 5, a video clip of BJP leader Kapil Mishra, contesting from the Karawal Nagar constituency, has been circulating on social media.

In the clip, Mishra can be heard saying, “Today, we are winning even in Muslim-majority seats. I say with full confidence that Owaisi Sahab is cutting into Kejriwal”s votes, Congress is doing the same, and Muslim votes are getting divided. I want to tell you that once the Muslim vote is split, we will form our government.”

An X user shared the video with the caption, “Along with the people of Delhi, the rest of the country's Muslims should also understand this: #IfYouDivideYouWillSuffer. Look, this is the same person who orchestrated attacks on Muslims in collusion with the police. If you still don’t understand, you will suffer.” (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim false, as the viral video has been edited. The original video does not show Mishra talking about the division of Muslim votes due to Owaisi and Congress.

Upon analysing the video, we found that Mishra’s lip movements do not sync with the audio, suggesting that the video may have been edited.

Taking this as a cue, we checked Mishra's social media accounts and found a video live-streamed on his official Facebook account on January 23, 2025. The video shows Mishra addressing a public gathering in Khajoori Khas in Delhi’s Karawal Nagar.

In the video, Mishra appeals for votes while criticising the ten-year rule of Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP government in Delhi. The viral clip appears at the 9:00-minute mark. However, it does not show him claiming that the BJP is winning Muslim-majority seats due to vote division as seen in the viral video.

Instead, the video captures him speaking about the 2020 Delhi riots. He says, “Today, the people seeking your votes from the Aam Aadmi Party are introducing themselves as close aides of Arvind Kejriwal, Durgesh, and Manish Sisodia. But I want to ask you—today, they say, ‘I live right here in Khajoori, so vote for me.’ This is what they claim. But tell me, on the day your homes were set on fire, did they come to help you? What is the point of them living here if they were nowhere to be found when the rioters arrived? I want to remind the people of Khajoori, loud and clear.”

He then goes on to attack the AAP candidate, alleging that the latter was with the rioters at that time.

Here is a collage comparing the edited and original videos. Mishra’s hand gestures, a person talking on the phone, and the camera’s panning are identical in both videos.

Hence, we conclude that the viral clip has been edited by adding external audio. We conducted a keyword search but found no speech where Mishra made a similar statement. Also, we could not determine whether the audio was AI-generated, mimicked, or taken from an old speech.