Fact Check: Amit Shah insults tribal leader Champai Soren on stage? No, viral video is edited
Social media posts with a video clip of a public meeting in Jharkhand claim to show Amit Shah disrespecting Champai Soren by not addressing him properly
By Sibahathulla Sakib Published on 12 Nov 2024 3:47 PM IST
Claim: Home Minister Amit Shah insulted tribal leader Champai Soren during a public meeting in Jharkhand.
Fact: The claim is false. The video was edited. The original extended video shows Amit Shah addressing the tribal leader as āChampaijiā.
Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced its list of candidates for the upcoming Jharkhand Assembly elections. Former chief minister Babulal Marandi and other leaders such as Champai Soren and Sita Soren are among the 66 candidates on the list.
The election contest is drawing significant attention as Champai Soren, formerly a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader who joined the BJP in August 2024 in Ranchi, is set to run for the Saraikela seat.
Amid the BJPās election campaign, a short clip has gone viral on social media. It claims to show Union home minister Amit Shah insulting Champai Soren at a public meeting by not addressing him in a respectful manner.
An X user shared the video, captioning it, āSuch an insult! Just because they are tribals. Amit Shah, why are you irritated with them?ā (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)
Similar posts have also been shared here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is edited.
Through a reverse image search, we found a report from Republic World, published on November 3, and titled āāAage Aaoā¦ā: Amit Shah Motivates Babulal Marandi, Champai Soren To Come Forward On Stageā
In the video, similar to the viral clip, Shah can be seen encouraging Babulal Marandi and Champai Soren to step forward and wave to the crowd. However, unlike the claim, he respectfully addresses both leaders as āChampaijiā and āBabulaljiā. The video footage shows the event location as East Singhbhum, Jharkhand.
We also found the extended, unedited 23-minute video of the public meeting posted by Live 7 Bharat on November 3, 2024.
In this video, around the 22:20-minute mark, the same viral clip appears in full showing Shah calling both leaders in a respectable way. Throughout the video, the home minister can be seen acknowledging the leadersā presence on stage and asking people to support them.
News reports from the rally in East Singhbhum district, covered by various media outlets like Inside Jharkhand and Pratidin Time, highlighted Amit Shahās strong criticism of chief minister Hemant Soren.
Shah accused Soren of allocating tribal land to outsiders and pledged to introduce strict legislation to prevent this.
The election in Jharkhand is set to take place in two phases, on November 13 and November 20, with counting scheduled for November 23. The rally seen in the video was part of the ongoing election campaign.
Hence, the viral claim that Amit Shah insulted Champai Soren at a public meeting by not addressing him in a respectful way is false.
