A video of an auto rickshaw sporting BJP flags being attacked leading to a scuffle between two groups is doing rounds on social media with a claim that BJP workers were attacked in Kolkata ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The post is being shared with the text: Election campaigning in Kolkata. Still, you think people will vote freely & there will be a fair election
Here’s the link to the above post (archive).
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the post and found the claim to be false.
In the video, we noticed that slogans raised in the melee were in Bangla. Running a keyword search, we also found a Times Now video, dated August 6, 2022, featuring similar visuals, with the title: West Bengal: Clash raged between TMC and BJP workers, TMC alleges BJP blocked convoy | English News
According to the video description, the incident happened in Hooghly district of West Bengal where members of the TMC and BJP clashed with each other. It was also mentioned that the TMC MLA visible in the video was Asit Majumdar.
Another report by NDTV, dated August 5, 2022, stated that Asit Majumdar — a three-time MLA of the area — claimed that he confronted BJP workers as they were making wild allegations against TMC. “They stopped my car and heckled me after which our women workers intervened,” NDTV quoted Majumdar as saying.
We found that similar reports were also published by TOI, TV9 Bangla and The Indian Express (Bengali).
Thus, it is clear that it is an old video from West Bengal is being shared as recent with misleading claims.
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