DigitEye India Fact Checkers
Congress leader Digvijay Singh has become the centre of another controversy, especially amid the Madhya Pradesh state assembly general elections due in November 2023. A video featuring the former MP chief minister and Congress veteran is going viral with a claim that he was saying that beef consumption should not be an issue. The claim was captioned, “People of MP will not forget your words.”
“Cow is a dirty animal, it’s not at all holy – Congress leader Digvijay Singh”
They hate Hinduism by bottom of their hearts.. pic.twitter.com/TPLnBQJkBW
— Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) October 14, 2023
See a similar claim on Facebook here.
In the video, Digvijay Singh was heard saying in Hindi: “The cow is an animal that wallows in its own filth, so how can it be our mother? There should be no issue with consuming beef.”
FACT CHECK
When we searched for the original video with the help of some key frames, we could locate it here, in which the Congress leader was referring to Hindutva leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who, Digvijay Singh quoted in his speech as writing in his book that beef consumption should not be a problem. And the video was uploaded on December 25, 2021, which had aroused considerable debate on social media then.
When we searched for news reports pertaining to these remarks by Digvijay Singh, we could find them here and here, covered by major news outlets.
The 2021 video can be seen here:
#WATCH | Veer Savarkar in his book has written that the Hindu religion doesn’t have any relation with Hindutva. He also wrote that cow… can’t be our mother and there is no problem in eating cow beef: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal pic.twitter.com/wYsk4YXmDJ
— ANI (@ANI) December 25, 2021
The video shows Digvijaya Singh saying in Hindi, which translates as: “Veer Savarkar had written in his book that Hinduism and Hindutva are unrelated. He also wrote that a cow is an animal that swallows its own excrement, how can she be considered a mother? There’s nothing wrong with consuming beef. This is what Savarkar himself stated.”
The current video deletes the part of Savarkar and shows as if Digvijaya Singh was making these remarks, hence the claim is false.
Claim: Digvijay Singh says there’s nothing wrong with consuming beef.
Conclusion: False, Digvijay Singh was quoting Savarkar’s writing and not making his own statement.
Rating: Misleading — 
