Old video of Amit Shah flinging garland at Basaveshwara statue in Karnataka shared as recent

Hyderabad: Amidst the election campaigns in Karnataka for the upcoming Assembly polls, a video showing Union Home Minister Amit Shah flinging a garland on an idol is doing the rounds on social media. Those sharing the video claim that the video shows the minister disrespecting Basaveshwara, a 12th-century reformer who founded Lingayatism.

A Twitter user shared the video using the hashtag #KarnatakaElections2023.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video dates back to the 2018 election campaign in Karnataka.

We ran a keyword search and found a 2018 article on India TV titled “Karnataka Assembly Election 2018: Amit Shah fails to garland Basaveshwara statue in Bengaluru, Yeddyurappa does it with ease.”

It said Amit Shah had an embarrassing moment in Karnataka when he failed to garland a statue of Lord Basaveshwara in Bengaluru. It also said B.S. Yeddyurappa, who was then BJP’s CM candidate for the Assembly elections, got it right.

India TV, on its YouTube channel, also published a video report in 2018 titled “BJP President Amit Shah pays tribute to Lingayat Philosopher Basaveshwara in Bengaluru.” The video shows the same visual as seen in the viral video.

The viral video was tweeted by News9 on 18 April 2018. The tweet read, “Amit Shah offered a floral tribute to #Basaveshwara on the occasion of #BasavaJayanti, however, the garland missed the statue.”

From this, we conclude that the viral video of Amit Shah flinging a garland at a statue of Lord Basaveshwara is from 2018 and is being falsely linked to the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections.