Fact Check: Bihar polls – Sonu Sood endorses Bhojpuri star Khesari Lal Yadav’s candidature? No, video is AI-manipulated

Hyderabad: Bhojpuri cinema superstar Khesari Lal Yadav has entered the political arena as the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) candidate for the Chhapra Assembly seat in Bihar’s Saran district.

He faces a three-way contest against the BJP’s Chhoti Kumari and the Jan Suraaj Party’s Jai Prakash Singh in the upcoming Bihar Assembly Elections.

Meanwhile, a video of Bollywood actor Sonu Sood speaking in support of Yadav’s entry into politics and his candidacy in the Bihar polls has been circulating online, claiming to show his endorsement.

In the alleged video, Sood can be heard saying: “I heard that Khesari Lal Yadav is contesting the election from Chhapra and many people are opposing the decision of Khesari’s brother. So, I just want to say to those people—who are you to oppose someone else’s decision? You went where you liked, and Khesari Lal went where he liked. Khesari’s brother is absolutely in the right place. I am with Khesari Lal, and I wish he wins the election and helps people. Everyone else is with you. Don’t worry about listening to people like these—you are doing very good work.”

Sharing the video, an X user wrote, “Film actor Sonu Sood ji has given a dressing-down to the opponents of Khesari Lal Yadav by supporting him.” (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false, as the video has been manipulated using AI.

Source of the video

A reverse image search of the video’s keyframes led us to the original video posted on Sonu Sood’s Instagram account on October 25.

Upon reviewing the video, we found its content to be philosophical rather than political. Sood speaks about helping those in need, stating that acts of kindness reduce suffering and spread love. Nowhere in the video did we find him endorsing Yadav’s entry into politics and contesting the Bihar polls.

Anomalies in the viral video

We noticed a mismatch in the lip-syncing of the audio. Also, on comparing the viral clip with the original video, we could identify that Sood’s voice does not match.

Tools result

Upon analysing the audio using the AI-detection tool, Deepfake-O-Meter, four of its detectors determined that the audio was AI-generated, with confidence scores of 99.9 per cent, 100 per cent, 100 per cent and 99 per cent, respectively.

We did not find any credible news reports or social media posts showing that the actor has endorsed Khesari Lal Yadav’s candidacy in public.

Therefore, we conclude that the viral video of Sonu Sood endorsing Bhojpuri star Khesari Lal Yadav for contesting the Bihar polls from the Chhapra Assembly seat has been manipulated by adding AI-generated audio.