A video is being shared widely on social media with a claim that it shows an elderly man insulting Akhilesh Yadav during his door-to-door campaign for the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. The post claims that the elderly man sarcastically told Akhilesh to go and build a mosque, and no one from the neighbourhood will vote for him. It is being shared in the context of upcoming Assembly elections in the State. Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of an elderly man insulting Akhilesh Yadav by saying – ‘Go and build a mosque, no one from the neighbourhood will vote for you’.
Fact: The video is not related to any recent election campaign of Akhilesh Yadav. The video is being shared on the internet at least since November 2019. In the video, the elderly man neither insults Akhilesh Yadav nor talks about building a mosque. He talks about machines (EVMs) getting tampered. He says that if machines (EVMs) are not changed, then the party will neither get any votes nor form the government. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we searched on the internet with relevant keywords, many similar videos were found in the search results. It can be seen that the video is being shared on the internet at least since November 2019. Some of the old posts can be seen here, here, and here. So, it is not related to any recent election campaign of Akhilesh Yadav. Also, on listening to the elderly man in the longer version of the video, one can understand that he talks about machines (EVMs) getting tampered with. The elderly man neither insults Akhilesh Yadav nor talks about building a mosque. He says that if machines (EVMs) are not changed, then the party will neither get any votes nor form the government.
The same was reported by ‘Media Halchal News’ YouTube channel in November 2019. The video can be watched here.
To sum it up, the elderly man in the video neither insulted Akhilesh Yadav nor spoke about building a mosque.
