A video (here, here, and here) of Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav jumping over a gate surrounded by journalists is being shared on social media. It is claimed that he was escaping from the journalists asking him questions. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: The viral video shows Akhilesh Yadav escaping from journalists’ questions by jumping over a gate.
Fact: This incident took place in 2023 when Akhilesh Yadav jumped over the boundary wall gate of Jaya Prakash Narayan International Center (JPNIC) to pay tribute to Jayaprakash Narayan on his birthday. Reportedly, he was denied permission to go into JPNIC, which caused him to jump over the JPNIC gate to pay floral tribute to Jayaprakash Narayan. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
A basic keyword on the internet revealed that the viral video is not of a recent incident but from October 2023. This evidence contradicts the claim made in the viral post.
As per the news reports (here, here, and here) about this event, back in October 2023, during the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Jayapraksah Narayan, Akhilesh Yadav was denied permission to pay his tributes to him at Jaya Prakash Narayan International Center (JPNIC). This led to him jumping over the gate of JPNIC to pay a floral tribute to the freedom fighter.
On 11 October 2023, Samajwadi Party also posted video clips related to his incident on ‘X’ with a post description in Hindi that translates to “Samajwadi Party is not only a political party, Samajwadi Party is a movement, a storm.” Akhilesh Yadav also posted photos from this incident on ‘X’ on 11 October 2023, with the text, “What is the use of democracy when obstacles are created in garlanding the popular leader?BJP cannot stop the path of SP.”
To sum up, a video of Akhilesh Yadav scaling a gate of the JPNIC to garland Jayaprakash Narayan’s statue in October 2023 is being shared with a claim that he ran away from journalists who were questioning him.
