BJP MLA assaulted in Madhya Pradesh for asking votes in the name of religion? Fact Check

A video showing a man and his car being assaulted by a mob of people is going viral on social media. Social media posts claim that the man is a BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh. The video states that the leader was assaulted by the people because he was asking for votes in the name of religion.

The tweet attached to the video reads,

मध्य प्रदेश से भाजपा के रुझान आने लगे हैंl # विधायक जी की जोरदार कुटाई देखिए मुफ़्त में

(Translation: Watch the downfall of BJP from Madhya Pradesh. A Member of the Legislative Assembly is being beaten by the mob for free)

The video has fetched over 92.5K views, over 2K likes, and more than 1K retweets on X (formerly Twitter).

https://twitter.com/alokyadav521/status/1704856504984391823?s=20

The video was also shared here and here with a similar claim.

FACT CHECK

The video shows a mob armed with sticks attacking a car. It, then, pans towards a man lying on the ground with a torn shirt and people hitting him. Throughout the video, a BJP flag can be seen carried by people.

The Digiteye India team used inVID – a video verification tool – to break down the viral video into multiple keyframes. We used these keyframes and ran multiple reverse image searches on Google. One result led us to this video that was posted by Kalinga TV. The video was uploaded on March 12, 2022. The 5:03 minute-long video shows the crowd assaulting MLA Prashant Jagdev after he ran his car over people.

The Kalinga TV video shows a white SUV with ‘DISCOVERY’ written above its number plate. The video also shows a blurred picture of a man in a torn shirt being assaulted by the mob. Both of these visuals were present in the viral video. The viral video contained snippets from this report stitched together.

To find out more, we conducted a keyword search on Google. One result led us to this news article by NDTV that was dated March 12, 2022. The report mentioned that “At least 22 people, including 10 police personnel and two journalists, were injured on Saturday when suspended BJD (Biju Janata Dal) MLA Prasant Jagdev’s vehicle allegedly ploughed through a crowd at Banapur in Khurda district.”

Another report by The Indian Express added that local residents pulled Prashant Jagdev out of his car and assaulted him.

Hence, the claims made by the viral video are false.

CLAIM: A BJP leader in Madhya Pradesh was assaulted for asking for votes in the name of religion.

CONCLUSION: The video is from Odisha and was shot in 2022. The leader who was assaulted in the video is a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) member.

RATING: Misrepresentation –