Fact Check: Viral video of Chitra Tripathi predicting poll win for Rahul Gandhi, INDIA alliance is edited

Hyderabad: A video of Aaj Tak news anchor Chitra Tripathi saying on TV that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is more popular than prime minister Narendra Modi in several surveys is going viral on social media. The video also shows Tripathi saying that in a survey by News 24, more than 80 per cent of people see the INDIA alliance winning the 2024 General Elections.

Taking a dig at Tripathi, a user shared the video and wrote, “How is this truth coming out? It seems that the BJP has stopped their payment due to fear of defeat. Is this why the truth is coming out of your mouth? Is it true that NDA is losing? (sic)”

Many X users have shared the video. Click here, here, here and here to view the posts.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video was edited by digitally replacing Chitra Tripathi’s audio.

Tripathi works for Aaj Tak, and the video shows her using News 24 as the source, which gave us the cue that the video in circulation might have been an edited version of its original.

Next, we looked for the original video on the YouTube channel of Aaj Tak and found a video of Tripathi anchoring a debate on the show Dangal, published by the channel on July 21, 2023. In the video, Tripathi is wearing the same dress and making the same gesture by finger as in the viral video. However, we found the debate in the original video was about the violence against women in Manipur during the internal strife in the state.

The viral clip appears at around 2.14 minutes. Here is the comparison of similar frames from the viral and original videos.

During our investigation, we found that the premium X user, AK Stalin, was among the first who shared the video, which was seen over one million times at the time of writing this article. Commenting on the post, Chitra Tripathi clarified that the video is fake and is being misused. She also tagged the Delhi police and Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, demanding strict action against people sharing these videos.

Hence, we conclude that the viral video is edited.