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| - Fact Check: Did Navjot Singh Sidhu say Brahmin, OBC, SC votes don't matter to Congress in Punjab?
The newspaper clipping shared widely stated that Punjab Congress chief and former international cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu stated that "votes of the Brahmins, Scheduled Castes, and Backward Classes do not matter to Congress in Punjab".
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India Today Fact Check
Navjot Singh Sidhu has not made such a statement. The screenshot of the newspaper report in the post is doctored.
Assembly polls in Punjab are scheduled for February 20. Amid, the high-octane election campaign, a clipping of a Punjabi newspaper report that makes some questionable claims is making the rounds on social media.
The newspaper clipping shared widely stated that Punjab Congress chief and former international cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu stated that “votes of the Brahmins, Scheduled Castes, and Backward Classes do not matter to Congress in Punjab”.
India Today Anti-Fake News War Room (AFWA) found the claim misleading. Navjot Singh Sidhu has not made any such remarks. The newspaper clipping was doctored.
Archived versions of posts with similar claims can be seen here and here.
AFWA PROBE
What did Sidhu say?
While investigating the claim we conducted a keyword search to find out whether Sidhu had made any such remarks.
We found that the Bharatiya Janata Party recently moved the Election Commission to take action against Sidhu for alleged derogatory remarks he made against a veteran Punjab politician.
The BJP delegation said that in an election meeting on February 11 in Muddal village, Sidhu referred to a leader “Kala Brahmin” (dark-skinned Brahmin). “In doing so, Shri Sidhu insulted the brahmin caste and attempted to create a wedge between them and other castes, solely with the objective of creating a divide in the social cohesion amongst the Punjabi community,” the BJP’s complaint said.
This, however, is not the same as the claim being made in the viral clipping. To further confirm the claim we contacted Surinder Dalla, the media advisor of Sidhu.
"Sidhu has never made this statement. We have also verified the viral clip and found it to be fake," Dalla told India Today.
Source of this viral newspaper clip
We examined the font and style of the viral newspaper clipping and found that it matched with the Daily Ajit — a leading Punjabi newspaper.
The dateline of the viral newspaper clip states February 15. However, we did not find this report on the Daily Ajit’s e-paper dated February 16 or February 15.
We got in touch with Satnam Singh Manak, the executive editor of the Daily Ajit. “Although the font and style of the screenshot used in the Facebook post are similar to our publication, we have not carried any such article. Second, in the screenshot, the name of the reporter is given. But we have no such reporter Amritsar,” Manak told India Today.
Therefore, we can conclude that the claim of this viral post is misleading. The newspaper clipping used in this post is morphed.
(With inputs from Yash Mittal in New Delhi)
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