The person seen swimming in this video is former BJP MLA from Morbi ‘Kantilal Amrutiya’; not the current MLA Brijesh Merja - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 3, 2022
In the context of recent bridge collapse in Gujarat, video of a man going into the water with the help of tube to rescue victims is being widely shared claiming that he is the congress party MLA of the Morbi Assembly Constituency ‘Brijesh Merja’. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of congress party’s MLA Brijesh Merja going into water to rescue Morbi bridge collapse victims.
Fact: The video shows Morbi’s BJP ex-MLA ‘Kantilal Amrutiya’. He also posted several videos of himself helping the victims at bridge collapse site. Moreover, ‘Brijesh Merja’, current MLA of Morbi is from BJP. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We searched the internet with relevant keywords and found the same video on TV9 Gujrati’s Instagram page on 31 October 2022. The description of the post identifies he person as former MLA Kantilal Amrutiya.
Taking a cue from this, we searched more about him and came across his Twitter account. The bio also says he’s the ex-MLA of Morbi constituency.
He also posted several videos including the viral video, on his timeline where he can be seen helping the people at the site of bridge collapse. Some of them can be seen here, here, and here.
મોરબીમાં ઝુલતા પુલની દુર્ઘટના ખુબ જ કમનસીબ છે. હું સ્થળ પર જ છું. સૌને નમ્ર અપીલ કે આ દુઃખની ઘડીમાં આપણે સૌ સાથે મળી શક્ય તેટલા લોકોને મદદરૂપ થઈએ.
નોંધ:જે જગ્યાએ બચાવ કાર્ય ચાલુ છે ત્યા ખોટી ભીડ ના કરીએ જેથી રાહતકાર્યમાં કોઈ અડચણ ના આવે.@narendramodi @AmitShah @Bhupendrapbjp pic.twitter.com/s5HG2ZY0zt
Moreover, the current MLA of Morbi is BJP’s Brijesh Merja. In 2017, he won the Morbi assembly seat as Congress party’s candidate, but in 2020, he left congress and was re-elected from BJP.
To sum it up, the visuals actually show Morbi’s BJP ex-MLA ‘Kantilal Amrutiya’ going into the water to rescue the bridge collapse victims; not the current MLA Brijesh Merja.