Fact Check: Jubilee Hills by-poll – Naveen Yadav says he celebrated MLA Maganti’s death? No, news clipping is fake
A Telugu newspaper clipping states that Congress candidate for the Jubilee Hills by-election, Naveen Yadav, made controversial remarks about MLA Maganti’s death in an interview.
By - K Sherly Sharon
Claim:Naveen Yadav made controversial remarks about MLA Maganti’s death in an interview with TV5 News.
Fact:The claim is false. The viral Telugu newspaper clipping has been fabricated.
Hyderabad: In the run up to the Jubilee Hills by-polls scheduled on November 11, a Telugu newspaper clipping is going viral on social media about the Congress candidate.
The Congress fielded candidate, Naveen Yadav, filed his nomination on November 17. The by-election was necessitated by the death of sitting Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA Maganti Gopinath in June this year.
The viral Telugu newspaper clipping contains the title, “I fired crackers when Maganti died”. It stated that the Congress candidate Naveen Yadav made these controversial remarks in an interview with TV5.
The key points of the newspaper clipping stated in Telugu, “I wished that Maganti should die because as long as he was alive, I could never become an MLA. When I heard the news of his death, I celebrated by bursting crackers at home with my family. During the BRS regime, I couldn’t make settlements, so I joined the Congress party… If MIM people say something, Muslims are even ready to commit suicide.”
The newspaper clipping carries the logo of the Telugu news outlet Velugu, the date of publication, and a link to the supposed report.
Sharing the newspaper clipping on Facebook, a user wrote, “As soon as Maganti died, I burst firecrackers. Controversial remarks by Congress candidate Naveen Yadav in a TV5 interview.” (Translated from Telugu) (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the viral claims are false. The Telugu newspaper clipping is fabricated.
The link from the viral newspaper clipping brings up the error, ‘404 Page Not Found. The page you requested was not found.’
On the official website of Velugu newspaper we did not find any news report mentioning that Congress candidate Naveen Yadav made controversial remarks about celebrating Maganti Gopinath’s death.
A Zee News report from October 14 states that Naveen Yadav had made some sensational comments about Maganti’s death. The report reads, “Naveen Yadav, who participated in the Jubilee Hills bypoll election campaign, said that the death of MLA Maganti Gopinath was a divine decree. He also said that elections come once every five years. If it comes in two years, then we must understand it. Was development done then? Or was injustice done? He said controversially that the people know.”
The report stated that these comments were made during an election campaign. However, there are no mentions to the controversial remarks about celebrating the former MLA’s death as the viral newspaper clipping claimed.
We reached out to Naveen Yadav’s team who told us that the viral newspaper clipping is fake. They said that Naveen Yadav did not make any such remarks regarding the death of Maganti Gopinath.
They shared a link to a YouTube video showing the interview of Naveen Yadav on TV5 News. The video was uploaded by the news organisation on October 21 with the title, “Sambasiva Rao Interview With Jubilee Hills Congress MLA Candidate Naveen Yadav”.
In the interview, Naveen Yadav is not seen making any controversial remarks about former MLA Maganti’s death.
NewsMeter has previously debunked claims made using fabricated Telugu newspaper clippings in the context of the Jubilee Hills by-polls. You can read the reports here and here.
It is clear that Naveen Yadav did not make any controversial remarks about former MLA Maganti’s death in the TV5 News interview. The viral Telugu newspaper clipping has been fabricated.
Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claims are false.
