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| - Fact Check: 2018 video of Kamal Nath saying Congress needs '90% Muslim votes' viral as recent
A video of Congress leader Kamal Nath saying the party needs 90 per cent of Muslim votes to win elections was circulated ahead of the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections in November 2018. It is not recent.
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India Today Fact Check
This video was circulated ahead of the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections in November 2018. It is not recent.
Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath on February 13 met the controversial self-styled godman Dhirendra Shastri at Bageshwar Dham in the Chhatarpur district. Reportedly, the Congress leader prayed at the temple for the party’s victory in the upcoming assembly elections.
On February 24, Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Prashant Patel Umrao tweeted a video of Nath purportedly saying that his party will be doomed if Muslims didn’t vote for the party. Sharing the video, Umrao claimed that the statement was made by Nath after his visit to Bageshwar Dham.
Criticising Nath for supposed hypocrisy, Umrao wrote: “Kamal Nath has repeatedly exposed his chameleon-like nature. After making a show of praying at Shri Bageshwar Dham, his entire focus is now on Muslim votes.” The archived version of the post can be seen here.
AFWA found that the video in question is more than four years old.
AFWA Probe
With the help of relevant keywords, we found the same video shared by multiple media organisations in November 2018. A longer version of the same video was uploaded to the YouTube channel of NDTV on November 21, 2018. As per this report, the clip was released by the BJP a few weeks ahead of the MP assembly elections that took place on November 28, 2018. Several other media organisations including India Today and ABP carried the video at that time.
In the video, Nath could be heard asking a group of people to study the polling percentage in Muslim-majority booths in previous elections in Madhya Pradesh and find out why all Muslims didn’t come out to cast their votes.
"If at some booths the polling percentage is 60 per cent, we need to find out why there was a dip in voting... We need, not 80 per cent, but 90 per cent of Muslims to come out and vote... If 90 per cent Muslims don't vote for us, we could suffer a huge loss," Nath could be heard saying in the video.
As per news reports from that time, after the video went viral, the BJP accused Nath of seeking votes on religious grounds. The saffron party also urged the Election Commission to take action against Nath and the party. The Congress, on the other hand, asked what was wrong with the video and called the BJP’s allegations a conspiracy to divide voters into communal lines.
We were not able to independently verify the authenticity of the viral video. It is, however, clear that the video is from 2018 and not recent as claimed by Umrao.
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