Fact Check: Viral video of MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan doctored with fake audio

Hyderabad: In the backdrop of the ensuing Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, a video of MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is being widely circulated on social media with misleading claims.

In the viral video, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan could be seen in a meeting with some senior officials, while apparently saying, “I’m telling this multiple times, stop Kamal Nath. If Congress comes to power, they will start giving everyone Rs 500 rupees per month and (cooking) gas at Rs 1,500. Forget this time, even next time we’ll not be able to win. We have already given some people Rs 1,250, they will give everyone. We have just announced for the sake of it that we’ll give everyone a (cooking) gas cylinder at Rs 450. They (Congress) will actually give because they are already giving in other states. Do anything but stop Kamal Nath. (translated from Hindi)”

The viral video also has the logo of the news agency ANI on it.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the viral video was edited and audio was added to deliberately change the context.

On closely analyzing the viral video, we found that the video and the audio didn't sync with each other, and the ANI watermark doesn’t match the one found in videos published by ANI. Here is an example of an ANI video from the official X handle featuring Shivraj Singh which shows their watermark. Click here and here to see more examples from their official account.

We also performed a keyword search to find media reports carrying any such statement made by the MP CM but could not yield any results.

Further, we performed a reverse image search taking the keyframes from the viral video and found the same video on the official X handle of ANI – covering news from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan – and the official YouTube channel of ANI. Both videos did not have audio.

The caption in the tweet read, “Bhopal | Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan holds a review meeting with ministers of the state government and senior officials over the incident of fire at Bhopal’s Satpura Bhawan.”

Taking this as a cue, we found a media report in The Times of India titled ‘Satpura Bhawan Fire: Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan Holds Review Meeting’ dated June 13, 2023.

The article states, “Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday morning held a review meeting regarding the fire incident that broke out at Satpura Bhawan on Monday evening. The meeting was organized at the CM’s residence. Chief secretary Iqbal Singh Bains, director general of police (DGP) Sudhir Saxena, home minister Narottam Mishra, health minister Prabhu Ram Chaudhary, medical education minister Vishwas Sarang and other officials were present.”

After the meeting, Minister Sarang said that CM Chouhan had been continuously monitoring the incident since Monday. “He (CM) has given instructions that the offices where a fire incident occurred should start functioning from today. Secondly, efforts should be made to ensure that no such fire incidents occur in the future in such types of multi-story buildings.”

The same news was also covered by Live Mint and Business Standard as well.

Hence, we conclude that the fake audio was added to the video by MP CM Shivraj Singh.