An alleged video featuring ‘Aaj Tak’ news anchor Chitra Tripathi criticizing the BJP-led central government and claiming that Rahul Gandhi is more popular than Prime Minister Modi is circulating widely on social media platforms. Additionally, the video suggests that in a survey conducted by NEWS 24, more than 80% of people support the I.N.D.I.A alliance. In this article, let’s fact-check the claim presented in the post.
Claim: Video clip of Aaj Tak anchor Chitra Tripathi criticizing the BJP-led central government and predicting the NDA’s defeat in the 2024 general elections.
Fact: The viral video is fake, as the original audio was replaced with a digitally created audio of Chitra Tripathi’s to one of clips of her old show. In the original video uploaded on 21 July 2023 by Aaj Tak, Chitra Tripathi was anchoring a debate show called “Dangal,” where she discussed violence against women in Manipur during internal disturbances in the state. Chitra Tripathi, through a post on X(Twitter), clarified that the viral video is fake and has also requested authorities to take action against it. Therefore, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Chitra Tripathi is associated with Aaj Tak, and the video shows her as affiliated with News 24. This prompted us to suspect that this viral video might be an edited version of its original. To investigate further, we conducted a reverse image search on the internet using keyframes from the viral video. This search led us to the original video on the YouTube channel of Aaj Tak, published on 21 July 2023. In that video, Tripathi was anchoring a debate on the show “Dangal.” Notably, she wore the same dress and made the same finger gesture as seen in the viral video. However, we discovered that the original debate in the video was about violence against women in Manipur during the internal strife in the state.
The viral clip appears around the 2:15-minute mark. Here is a comparison of similar frames from the viral video and the original video published by Aaj Tak.
Subsequently, we discovered a clarification post by anchor Chitra Tripathi on her official X(Twitter) account, denouncing the viral video as fake and stating that her video is being misused. She also tagged the Delhi Police and Ashwini Vaishnav, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, demanding strict action against those sharing these videos. From all this information, it is evident that the viral video is fake, as a digitally created audio has been added to the original video of Chitra Tripathi’s old show.
To sum up, this viral video featuring Aaj Tak anchor Chitra Tripathi criticizing the Modi government and claiming NDA’s defeat in the 2024 elections is digitally manipulated and fake
