Old video of LIC employees protest against privatisation shared as a recent one - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
February 12, 2021
A video is being shared on social media claiming that the LIC trade unions have started protesting the Government’s decision to launch the IPO of LIC. This video shows a group of people chanting ‘Modi Sarkar Hosh Me Aau. Desh Ko Bechna Bandh Karo’ slogans in front of the LIC office. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of LIC trade unions protesting the Government’s decision to launch the IPO of LIC.
Fact: Video shared in the post is an old one. This video shows LIC employees protesting the Government’s decision of partial disinvestment in the 2020 Union Budget. This protest took place at a LIC Branch in Jaipur. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
On reverse image search of screenshots in the video, we found similar visuals in the videos posted on social media during February 2020. They can be seen here and here. We found a better version of this video posted on a YouTube channel. On observing carefully, we could see ‘All India Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes & Buddhists LIC Employees Welfare Association-Jaipur’ banner in the video. This confirms the protest in the video was conducted by the LIC employees in Jaipur. This video was uploaded to YouTube on 04 February 2020.
When we searched for other sources using these keywords, we found that the protest in the video took place at LIC of India Branch Unit-3 in Jaipur. Similar visuals of the building can be seen in the gallery of this LIC branch and also in Google maps.
On searching for complete details of this protest, we found that LIC trade unions organised nationwide protests against Government’s move to disinvest LIC partially in Union Budget 2020. We found news articles and videos reporting these protests which were also organized in Rajasthan, on 04 February 2020. These reports can be seen here, here, and here.
During the 2021 Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman announced that the government will launch the IPO of LIC.  Following this, LIC employees across the nation began protests. News articles published on these protests can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, an old video of LIC employees protest against privatisation is being shared as the recent one.