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| - Fact Check: Fake Sambit Patra quote mocking LPG price hikes goes viral on social media
Social media was flooded with posts about a supposed comment made by BJP's Sambit Patra on the fuel price hike. India Today checks the authenticity of the posts.
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India Today Fact Check
Sambit Patra did not make any such statement. Patra’s photo used in this post is from a February 2020 press conference in New Delhi.
Following yet another hike in liquefied petroleum gas prices — the third one in two months — the Centre has come under sharp criticism. Amid this, social media was flooded with posts about a supposed comment made by Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra.
Many criticised Patra and the BJP while sharing a screengrab from what appears to be a TV news broadcast. In it, a quote attributed to Patra reads, “Only gas has gotten more expensive, not the cylinders themselves.”
According to this BJP Spokesperson Sambit Patra, it is only Gas price that has increased, not the cylinder price.
For BJP-RSS, public problems are a joke. pic.twitter.com/SpwxAoLgTv — Sampath Babu. J (@sampath_INC) July 12, 2022
AFWA’s investigation found that Patra had not made any such comment. Patra’s photo in the screengrab is from an old press conference.
AFWA Probe
We first looked for media reports on the supposed comments Patra made. We, however, found nothing. A comment like that made by a veteran BJP leader of Patra’s stature would definitely have gotten media coverage.
We then conducted a reverse search of Patra’s photo in the post and found that it was used in an Amar Ujala report from February 21, 2020.
Per the report, it was from a press conference at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi where Patra made controversial comments on former All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MLA Waris Pathan and Amulya Leona, a student activist who shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” at a rally in Bengaluru.
Following subsequent searches, we found a video of the same press conference on Facebook.
The screengrab in the viral post was taken at the 5.04-minute mark in the video. What is interesting is that in the viral post, Patra’s name has been spelt wrong. The post attributes the quote to “Sandeep Patra”. The text also appears shoddily added, indicating that it was not an actual TV screengrab.
Hence, we concluded that the claim was false. BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra did not mock LPG price hikes as stated in the viral posts.
(With inputs from Sanjana Saxena)
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