Fact Check: ‘Delhi blast can happen in Bihar too’ - Yogi warns voters before polls? No, video is AI-manipulated

Hyderabad: A deadly explosion outside Delhi’s Red Fort on November 10 has killed at least eight persons and injured many more. Ongoing probe shows a massive blast in a slow-moving Hyundai i20 car near Gate No 1 of Red Fort Metro Station at around 7 pm.

In this context, a video showing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, is going viral on social media. The video claims to show UP CM warning the people of Bihar that ‘what happened in Delhi would happen in Bihar’, ahead of the Bihar Assembly election phase 2, scheduled for November 11 across 122 constituencies.

Those sharing the video claim that it shows Yogi warning people about the consequences of voting against the BJP.

In the video, CM Yogi can be heard saying, “I warn the people of Bihar. What happened in Delhi could happen in Bihar. We didn’t launch the Trishul so our soldiers could show off their skills. We want to build a Hindu nation. For this Hindu nation, whether it is 8 or 800 lives that must be sacrificed, we will do it.” (Translated from Hindi)

He is also heard saying, “You all have betrayed us. But if you vote against the Bharatiya Janata Party in Phase 2 tomorrow, you will face the consequences.” (Translated from Hindi)

The video was shared on X with the caption, “Breaking News: Chief Minister Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath comes on podium in the wake of New Delhi blasts and openly threatens the people of Bihar that if you won’t vote for BJP in phase 2, then there can be repercussions for you, that you can’t even imagine.” (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is manipulated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Using keyword searches, we did not find any news reports or credible social media posts stating that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has threatened the people of Bihar to vote for the BJP in the context of the Delhi car blast.

The car blast near Delhi’s Red Fort took place at around 7 pm. However, the video shows UP CM Yogi Adityanath addressing a public meeting during the day.

The video contains the logo ‘Print Live’. We checked The Print YouTube channel and found the same video of CM Yogi. It was uploaded on October 31 with the title ‘LIVE: CM Yogi Adityanath addresses public meeting in Siwan, Bihar’.

The video does not contain any statements from Yogi Adityanath regarding the Delhi blast. The video is, in fact, older than the Delhi blast tragedy.

Another video of the same public meeting at Siwan was live-streamed by the official YouTube channel of CM Yogi on the same day. Going through this video too confirmed that the UP Chief Minister did not make any threatening remarks towards the voters of Bihar in the context of the Delhi car blast.

Is the viral video digitally manipulated?

Upon analysing the viral video closely, we found several markers of manipulation, common in videos manipulated by AI. Unnatural speech pattern, the speech and mouth movements were not in sync, and a segment of the video was found to be duplicated.

We found that the first 10 seconds of the video are the same as the last 10 seconds, with the only exception being the mouth movements and the audio. Small movements like eyes blinking, head tilting and nodding are the exact same in both these segments. You can find a video explaining the duplication of the video segments here.

An AI detection tool, Hive Moderation, flagged the footage as 99.3 per cent likely to contain AI-generated elements.

Therefore, it is clear that the video is AI-manipulated. NewsMeter concludes that the claim is false.