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Bhupendra Hooda’s anti-reservation statement: The viral news clipping is a doctored video

A video with the logo of Times Now Navbharat has gone viral on social media with the claim that former Haryana chief minister and Congress leader Bhupendra Hooda made a statement against reservation. The viral post suggests that Hooda said it was time for the backward and Dalit communities to think beyond reservation.

X user Vineet Nayak, who runs the handle BhikuMhatre (@MumbaichaDon), shared the video and claimed that Bhupendra Hooda had spoken about ending reservations if Congress came to power. (Archived link)

Another Right-wing propaganda account, @BattaKashmiri, also shared the video claiming that Hooda supported Rahul Gandhi’s statement in the US about scrapping reservation. (Archived link)

Similarly, Abhay Pratap Singh, associated with Sudarshan News, shared the video with the same misleading claim. (Archived link)

Several BJP supporters and Right-wing accounts, including Megh Updates and Ocean Jain, amplified the video, all making the same claim about Hooda’s stance on reservation.

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Fact Check

The readers should note that Alt News has already debunked the claim by the BJP on Rahul Gandhi’s statement on reservation in the US.

Coming back to the Hooda video, a closer examination of the viral clip shows that the red background, where the supposed statement appears, does not match the rest of the video frame, indicating that the video has been tampered with. 

Upon further investigation and a search with keywords related to Bhupendra Hooda on YouTube, Alt News found a frame from the viral clipo in a video uploaded by Times Now on May 25, 2024. The video description mentions that this footage was from the day Bhupendra Hooda cast his vote during the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections. This means it has nothing to do with any statement on reservation. It appears that the viral video was a three-month-old clip that had been doctored with false graphics and voiceovers to create the appearance of a statement being made against reservation.

In fact, Times Now Navbharat later tweeted a clarification, debunking the viral video as fake.

Additionally, in media reports published in July 2024, Bhupendra Hooda was quoted accusing the BJP of being “anti-Dalit and backward,” which contradicts the claims made in the doctored video.

To sum it up, Right-wing social media accounts and pro-BJP users edited an old Times Now Navbharat report to falsely claim that former Haryana chief minister Bhupendra Hooda had made a statement against reservation. 

The post Bhupendra Hooda’s anti-reservation statement: The viral news clipping is a doctored video appeared first on Alt News.


This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.