Old video from Tamil Nadu shared as the recent visuals of an elected Congress MP humiliating a Hindu priest in Karnataka - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
May 25, 2023
A video is being shared on social media claiming it is the visuals of an elected legislative in Karnataka stopping a Bhoomi pooja ceremony by a priest and questioning a government officer for calling only a Hindu priest to the ceremony. A few other posts claim it is the visuals from Karnataka where an elected DMK MP Senthil Kumar asked a Hindu priest to leave the stone-laying ceremony and ordered the government official to bring a Christian pastor, the Imam and atheists for the stone-laying ceremony. Sharing the video, these posts claims that this is the humiliation faced by Hindu priests in Karnataka after Congress formed the government in the state. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of an elected MP in Karnataka humiliating a Hindu priest and stopping a bhoomi pooja for conducting the ceremony as per Hindu customs.
Fact: The video shared in the post is from Tamil Nadu, not from Karnataka. The video shows Dharmapuri Lok Sabha MP S. Senthil Kumar objecting to bhoomi pooja for a lake restoration project by a priest and questioning a government official whether he was aware that a government function should not be held in such a manner involving prayers of only particular religion. Dharmapuri MP questioned the government official why they did not invite the Church father, the Imam and atheists to the stone laying ceremony and asked him to invite them. The incident took place in July 2022 and has nothing to do with Karnataka and the Congress. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the screenshots and by searching with relevant keywords, a video with similar visuals was found published by a few news channels in July 2022. They can be seen here and here. These news channels reported it is the visuals of Dharmapuri MP S. Senthil Kumar objecting to the ‘Bhoomi pooja’ of the Alapuram Lake restoration project near Paparettipatti in the Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu. S. Senthil Kumar tweeted the same video on 16 July 2022, stating, “Trying to Keep my cool. At times they make me to lose my patience.”
When we searched for further sources using relevant keywords, we found several news articles that reported about the incident in July 2022. They can be seen here and here. These reports mentioned them as the visuals of Dharmapuri Lok Sabha MP S. Senthil Kumar objecting to bhoomi pooja for a road project by a priest and questioning a Public Works Department Executive official whether he was aware that a government function should not be held in such a manner involving prayers of only particular religion.
Dharmapuri Lok Sabha MP S. Senthil Kumar asked the official, “What is this? Where are the other religions?, Where is the Christian and Muslim? Invite the Church father, the Imam, invite those who do not profess any religion, the atheists, the Dravidar Kazhagam (representatives)“. Senthil Kumar demanded an invitation to Christian and Islam priests along with Hindu priests to the stone laying ceremony. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the video is from Tamil Nadu, not from Karnataka as mentioned in the post.
To sum it up, an old video from Tamil Nadu is shared as the recent visuals of an elected Congress MP humiliating a Hindu priest in Karnataka.