‘Congress MLA Anil Upadhyay ?’ – Old fictional character revived this time as MLA praising Modi - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 2, 2021
A video is being widely shared on social media with a claim that it shows Congress MLA Anil Upadhyay praising PM Modi and his initiatives. The video was originally posted in February 2020 and has been shared more than 21 thousand times. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of Congress MLA Anil Upadhyay praising PM Modi and his initiatives.
Fact: The man praising Modi in this video is Mohan Chandra Pandey. He is not a Congress MLA. In fact, there is no Congress MLA with the name Anil Upadhyay. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
At the beginning of the posted video, the man in the suit is referred to as ‘Pandey ji’. When we searched for the posted video on the internet, many similar videos with the same man were found in the search results. They have also tagged ‘@M0hanPandey’ in their posts. On looking at the Facebook and Twitter profiles of ‘Mohan Chandra Pandey’, it can be confirmed that the man praising Modi in the video is Mohan Chandra Pandey. He has posted the same video on his profile in December 2019. In one of his other videos, he mentions that he works as a Zonal Sales Manager – Everest Masala. He can also be seen as supporting BJP in many of his videos.
In April 2019, he has also tweeted that Republic TV has wrongly shown him as Congress leader Anil Upadhyay. He has mentioned in his tweet that he is a fan of Modi.
@narendramodi @republic Arunav ji  यह गलत बात है कि आपका चैनल मेरे वीडियो यानी मोहन पांडे के वीडियो को अनिल उपाध्याय कांग्रेस लीडर के नाम से प्रसारित कर रहा है मैं एक मोदी जी का फैन हूं ना कि कांग्रेसी इसलिए मैं परेशान हो गया हूं जगह-जगह से आने सुनते हुए तुरंत आप इसको ठीक करें
Also, when we searched on the ‘My Neta’ website about ‘Anil Upadhyay’, it was found that there is no Congress MLA with the name ‘Anil Upadhyay’. There are two persons with that name in the search results but neither of them belongs to INC (Indian National Congress).
Earlier, when several other videos claiming to be related to ‘BJP MLA Anil Upadhyay’ and ‘Congress MLA Anil Upadhyay’ were shared on social media, FACTLY has debunked them. The fact-check articles can be read here, here, and here.
To sum it up, the man praising Modi in the video is Mohan Chandra Pandey. He is not a Congress MLA named Anil Upadhyay.