A photo is being shared on social media claiming it as the recent visuals of Brahmins burning BJP flags and protesting in front of the BJP office in Devria (also called Deoria) district in Uttar Pradesh. In the wake of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections 2022, this photo is being shared on social media. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Recent visuals of Brahmins burning BJP flags in Deoria, Uttar Pradesh.
Fact: The photo shared in the post shows an old protest that took place at Rajasthan’s Kotputli municipality in 2018. Expressing anguish over BJP denying Kotputli constituency ticket to Hansraj Patel, his supporters burned BJP flags and chanted anti-BJP slogans by burning effigies of BJP leaders. The photo shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, similar visuals were found posted on social media at least since 2020. They can be seen here and here. When spiritual guru Acharya Pramod tweeted the same photo with a similar claim in July 2020, a Twitter user in a reply shared a screenshot of the ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ article that carried the same picture and clarified that the photo shows an old protest that took place during the 2018 elections. The article was published on 20 November 2018 with a title, “सोमवार को भाजपा की पांचवीं सूची में कोटपूतली सीट पर जब मुकेश गोयल का नाम – आया तो हंसराज पटेल ने बागी उम्मीदवार के…” (when translated to English, the text states, “On Monday, when Mukesh Goyal’s was announced in the BJP’s fifth list in Kotputli seat, Hansraj Patel turned the rebel candidate”.
When we searched for more details of this protest using these keywords, we found the ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ article reporting a similar protest incident that took place at Rajasthan’s Kotpuli constituency in 2018. According to the details reported in the article, as part of the 2018 Rajasthan Legislative elections, BJP nominated Mukesh Goyal as their candidate for the Kotpuli constituency, denying the ticket to Hansraj Patel. Disappointed over the party’s decision, Hansraj Patel filed his nomination as a rebel candidate. Expressing anguish over BJP’s decision of denying the party ticket to their leader, Hansraj Patel’s supporters had burned BJP flags and chanted anti-BJP slogans by burning effigies of BJP leaders. Also, according to the details provided in the article, Hansraj Patel belongs to the Gujjar community.
The ‘Indoria Times’ news channel published a video related to the Hansraj Patel’s supporters’ protest against BJP in Kotpuli. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the photo shared in the post is old and not related to the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Elections.
To sum it up, a 2018 photo from a protest in Rajasthan is being shared as the recent visuals of Brahmins protesting against BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
