A video purportedly showing people hurling shoes and slippers at Akhilesh Yadav, the national president of the Samajwadi Party and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, during an election rally in Kannauj, is being widely shared across social media platforms (here, here, & here). Let’s fact-check the claim made in the post through this article.
Claim: Video showing people throwing shoes and slippers at Akhilesh Yadav, the national president of the Samajwadi Party and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, during an election rally in Kannauj.
Fact: The viral video shows people hurling flowers and garlands at Akhilesh Yadav. Furthermore, there are no reports about people throwing shoes, slippers at Akhilesh Yadav recently during his 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Akhilesh Yadav, the national president of the Samajwadi Party and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, is contesting the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we conducted a relevant keyword search but could not find any reports regarding such an incident of people throwing shoes and slippers at Akhilesh Yadav recently during his 2024 look Sabha elections campaign. If such an incident did occur, it would certainly have been reported by several news agencies.
Upon careful observation of the viral video, we can notice a watermark from an Instagram account ‘@vikashyadavauraiyawale’. Upon searching his Instagram account, we discovered that he uploaded the same viral video ( archive link) on his page on 02 May 2024. The caption ‘Live from Kannauj’ accompanies the video.
Upon careful observation of the viral video in slow motion, it becomes evident that flowers and garlands were being thrown towards Akhilesh Yadav, rather than shoes and slippers. Nowhere in the entire video are shoes and slippers visible.
We then checked the Samajwadi Party’s official YouTube channel and discovered a video dated 27 April 2024. In this video, the woman who appears beside Akhilesh Yadav in the viral video can be seen with him, wearing the same clothes. According to the video description, Akhilesh Yadav conducted a roadshow in Rasulabad, which falls under the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat. Therefore, we can conclude that the viral video is from one of his election campaign rally held in Rasulabad, within the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat, on 27 April 2024.
To sum up, this video of people hurling flowers and garlands at Akhilesh Yadav is falsely shared as people throwing shoes at him.
