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| - Fact Check: Video of UP election candidate saying he wants to 'earn money by becoming MLA' is from 2017
Video of a UP poll candidate claiming that he wants to be an MLA to earn money has gone viral. India Today Anti Fake News War Room has found that the claim along with the video is misleading. This video is from the 2017 assembly election in UP.
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India Today Fact Check
This video is from the 2017 UP Legislative Assembly election. The man seen in the video is Gopal Chaudhary, an independent candidate who contested from UP’s Agra South constituency in 2017.
Election is a time when politicians try to present their best selves in front of the electorate. But a video recently making the rounds on social media flies in the face of such conventional wisdom.
The video in question sees a man openly confessing that he is contesting elections for money and personal gain. According to the social media posts, he is a candidate contesting for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. “I’m not contesting elections on any issue. I’m fighting for a personal agenda, which is to earn money by becoming an MLA,” the man can be heard saying in the video.
The archived versions of a similar post can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the claim along with the video is misleading. This video is from the 2017 assembly election in UP.
AFWA probe
The video in question has the logo of the news website, The Quint. In the video, the man has been identified as an independent candidate Gopal Chaudhary and for a fraction of a second, ‘Agra’ can be seen written on the top-right corner of the video.
We did a keyword search and found the same video report published by The Quint on January 28, 2017. This confirms that the video is old and is not related to the upcoming UP elections which will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 10.
The description of the video reads as follows, “The election season is upon us and from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, everyone is busy making election promises to the voters. However, Gopal Chaudhary, one of the independent candidates from the Agra constituency, has a different approach. Chaudhary sent ripples across social media when he made an ‘honest claim’ that he is contesting elections to make money and he has no intention to work for public welfare.”
Several media outlets also reported this unusual confession made by a candidate.
According to a 2017 report in The Indian Express, Chaudhary contested the 2017 assembly elections in UP from the Agra South constituency. Chaudhary received 464 (0.21 per cent) votes in the election.
The election to the 17th Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly was held from February 11 to March 8, 2017
The viral video was also tweeted by ANI on January 27, 2017.
#WATCH: Independent candidate Agra South Gopal Chaudhary says 'my only reason for coming into politics is money, I'll fool people" pic.twitter.com/sYfPIdhiYC — ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) January 27, 2017
It is hence clear that the video in question is over five years old and not is related to the upcoming elections.
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