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| - Fact Check: Imposter Twitter accounts of Aajtak peddling fake news
According to the message attributed to Smriti Irani, the minister apparently said, "Delhi's government school should not be made a polling booth or else people will vote for Kejriwal after seeing government school." India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found this post to be fake.
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India Today Fact Check
Dubious Twitter account masquerading Aajtak handle tweeted something which Smriti has never said.
With the Delhi Assembly elections just round the corner, political propaganda has taken centre stage on social media.
But would a senior BJP leader like Smriti Irani make any comment about Delhi schools which will favour the Arvind Kejriwal government in the upcoming polls? Highly unlikely! But that's exactly being claimed through a post which has gone viral on both Twitter and Facebook.
The claim
According to the message attributed to Smriti Irani, the minister apparently said, Delhi’s government school should not be made a polling booth or else people will vote for Kejriwal after seeing government school.
This message, both in Hindi and English, had been tweeted from an account with a handle @aajTAK51 as breaking news. The handle also has a similar logo of Aajtak news channel.
Many failed to notice that it's a fake Twitter account.
Several Facebook users 'Praveen Kumar Prabhakar' and 'Franklin Mendonca' have posted this message.
The archived version of these posts can be seen here and here.
The truth
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found this post to be fake. Neither Smriti has said this in public nor Aajtak has ever tweeted this message.
These tweets were posted from a dubious account masquerading Aajtak handle, which has now been suspended.
AFWA probe
When we looked for Twitter handle @aajTAK51, we found that Twitter has suspended this account for violating rules.
But we also found the archived version of this dubious Twitter handle.
@aajTAK51 was operational since November 2019. It had more than a thousand followers and posted over 2,600 tweets until the time it was suspended. Most of the content of this Twitter handle was far from facts and misleading.
The fake handle copied Aajtak Twitter account in a manner which could leave people confused.
The bio of the fake account reads: AajTak covers breaking news, latest news in politics, sports, business & cinema. Follow us & stay ahead!
The Twitter handle of the Aajtak news channel is @aajtak.
Another Twitter handle called @AajTak422 masquerades Aajtak handle and keep pushing misleading content. The fake handle is still active.
The conclusion
Upon searching the Internet and the social media profile, we have not found any credible evidence or news report which confirms that Smriti Irani ever said anything related to the Delhi government schools and polling booths.
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