Fact Check: Video showing protesters carrying Indian flag with Ashok Chakra replaced by Islamic Kalma is NOT relating to Congress victory
Congress won 64 seats in the Telangana Assembly elections, ending the 10-year rule of the BRS party. Congress state president Revanth Reddy was sworn in as the Chief Minister in the presence of all the senior leaders of the party. The Congress party is trying to implement six guarantees and welfare schemes it promised in the election manifesto.
Protest in Telangana
Congress won 64 seats in the Telangana Assembly elections, ending the 10-year rule of the BRS party. Congress state president Revanth Reddy was sworn in as the Chief Minister in the presence of all the senior leaders of the party. The Congress party is trying to implement six guarantees and welfare schemes it promised in the election manifesto.
Meanwhile, a video showing a procession by protestors carrying the Indian tricolor on which the symbolic Ashoka Chakra is replaced with the Islamic Kalma is being shared on social media. This video is viral with the claim that after the Congress victory in Telangana, people took out a procession carrying the Indian flag replacing the Ashoka Charka with Islamic Kalma.
The video is in circulation with the caption in Hindi: ‘तेलंगाना में कांग्रेस के जी
When translated, it claims that ‘As soon as the Congress won in Telangana, Kalma has come on to the Indian flag. Would you still like to elect the Congress to power in your state or centre?’
One of the Facebook users shared the claim in Kannada language.
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The video is an old one and shows the procession that took place in June 2022.
When we extracted the key frames from the video and searched them using Google reverse image search, we found a few news articles and videos confirming that it is from the year 2022.
The viral video is part of a news video published by the Zee News YouTube channel with the title DNA Live: DNA with Sudhir Chaudhary, June 10, 2022, I Top news Today I Hindi News I Analysis. The viral part starts from 32.52 minutes in the YouTube video.
In the video, Chaudhary can be heard reporting, "Today, in one such procession in Telangana, protesters defaced the Indian tricolour and these people removed the Ashoka Chakra from the centre of the tricolour and put an Islamic Kalma.” In the video, he talks about the nationwide protests against Nupur Sharma’s comments.
These protests took place as part of nationwide protests against the comments of Nupur Sharma (suspended BJP spokesperson) on Prophet Mohammed. In June 2022, Telangana state was governed by BRS and not the Congress.
The same news was also reported by India TV, a video published on their YouTube channel on June 10, 2022, with the title in Hindi “तेलंगाना के महबूबनगर में तिरं
According to an article in firstport.com, amid pan-India protests against the controversial remarks by the suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma on Prophet Mohammed, a few protestors were seen carrying a national flag in which the revered Ashoka Chakra was replaced with ‘Kalma’ in Telangana’s Mahabubnagar district.
Hence, the video in circulation is an old one and has no relation to Congress' victory in Telangana. The claim is False.