New Delhi:

A viral video featuring BJP MP and actor Manoj Tiwari is circulating on social media claiming that the leader has already conceded defeat against the Congress candidate even as his constituency is yet to vote.

The video features a Hindi text overlay that translates to: “Manoj Tiwari has accepted defeat.”

In the 11-second clip, Mr Tiwari, speaking to a journalist in a moving car, says, “Look, I was aware of my defeat, but the sad thing was that I had been winning for a long time, and then I felt like I was about to lose (translated from Hindi).”

On X, the video was shared with captions that read: “The dancer accepted defeat even before the elections. How will the BJP cross 400 (seats) like this? Kanhaiya Kumar is amazing.”

One such post has amassed over 39,000 views at the time of writing. Archived versions of these posts can be found here and here.

Manoj Tiwari is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from the North East Delhi constituency, which he currently represents as a Member of Parliament. The constituency will vote on May 25, when Mr Tiwari will face Kanhaiya Kumar, a Congress leader and former president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union, among other candidates.

However, a clip of Manoj Tiwari talking about his unsuccessful 2009 contest has been misinterpreted to claim he has purportedly accepted defeat against Mr Kumar in the ongoing polls.

What Did We Find?

Upon spotting the ‘Jist’ watermark in the viral video, we tracked its extended version on the Jist YouTube channel. This video (archived here) was uploaded on March 31. The video, titled “I Spent A Day With Manoj Tiwari To Discuss Pyar, Cricket, Rahul Gandhi, Modi & Kejriwal | Part-1,” runs for about an hour and 11 minutes. The viral segment appears between the 34:04 mark and the 34:14 timestamps.

The video is of Mr Tiwari interacting with a journalist, and around the 28-minute mark in this clip, Mr Tiwari delves into the 2009 general elections. He mentions that he was initially unaffiliated with any party and even campaigned for money for his now-rival Congress in Lucknow. He recounts how Amar Singh, a politician who served as the general secretary of the Samajwadi Party (SP), brought him into his party.

Around the 31:10 mark, Mr Tiwari says that despite his initial hesitation, he agreed to contest the election as an SP candidate after being urged by Amar Singh at a gathering that included actor Amitabh Bachchan and businessman Anil Ambani.

Further, he recalls his hesitance to contest the 2009 elections against BJP leader Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur due to his past affiliation with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP. He also narrates an incident where he fled to Mumbai during the campaign to evade facing Yogi Adityanath and the fear of his inevitable defeat, only to be caught and forced to return.

Then, around the 34:04 mark, Mr Tiwari says, “Look, I was aware of my defeat. But the sad thing was that I had been winning for a long time. I felt like I was about to lose.”

He then says, “But even in that defeat, there was a victory because of Yogi Adityanath, who stood for Hindu culture, civilization, and Sanatan culture… We didn’t know that Narendra Modi would become the country’s Prime Minister at the time. I’m talking about 2009. In 2009, you could see there was a situation of complete political instability throughout the country.”

This bit, where it is clear that he was referring to the 2009 elections, has been omitted from the viral clip to make it appear that he conceded defeat in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

2009 General Elections

Manoj Tiwari began his political career in Gorakhpur in 2009 when he ran as a Samajwadi Party candidate. He contested against Yogi Adityanath – now the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who had consistently represented Gorakhpur in Parliament since 1998, as reported by NDTV.

However, Mr Tiwari was unsuccessful in his Parliament bid at the time, securing only around 83,000 votes. Yogi Adityanath had polled over four lakh votes, and Bahujan Samaj Party’s Vinay Shankar Tiwari got 1.82 lakh votes. Mr Tiwari first won the Lok Sabha election in 2014 after he joined the BJP.

The Verdict

In the original video, Mr Tiwari discusses the 2009 general elections, which he had contested against Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur. This segment has been cropped and shared out of context to claim that he has already conceded defeat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

New Delhi:

A court here has granted bail to the 41-year-old man arrested for allegedly assaulting and splashing Congress Lok Sabha candidate Kanhaiya Kumar with ink, saying it has to balance the state’s interest of maintaining public order with the accused’s right to personal liberty.

On May 17, when Kumar, the Congress candidate for the North East Delhi seat, was coming out of ally Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) office in New Usmanpur after a meeting with local Councillor Chhaya Sharma, a group of people attacked him. The Delhi Police arrested one of the accused, Ajay Kumar, on Tuesday morning.

Metropolitan Magistrate Arushi Parwal heard the city police’s application seeking Ajay Kumar’s judicial custody for 14 days on Tuesday. The investigating officer (IO) said it was necessary to prevent him from committing similar offences.

Ajay Kumar’s counsel, however, vehemently opposed the plea and sought bail for his client.

The magistrate noted that the offences alleged included criminal intimidation, assaulting a woman with the intent of outraging her modesty and causing hurt, all of which carried the maximum punishment of up to seven years imprisonment.

She said, “At the time of deciding bail application, the court has to balance two conflicting interests — on one hand, the presumption of the accused’s innocence and his right to personal liberty and on the other hand, the state’s interest in the maintenance of public order and protecting the integrity of the investigation.” “Considering that the offences invoked in the present FIR are punishable with less than seven years imprisonment, clean antecedents of the accused, submissions made, circumstances of the case and keeping in view the judicial precedents on arrest and bail, application for bail of the accused is allowed,” she said.

The court directed Ajay Kumar to furnish bail bonds of Rs 25,000 with one surety of the like amount for his release.

Other bail conditions included an undertaking that the accused will not indulge in similar offence upon his release, not tamper with evidence, cooperate in the investigation and not contact the complainant.

In her complaint, AAP councillor Chhaya Sharma had said, “Some persons came and put garland around Kanhaiya Kumar. After garlanding him, some persons threw ink and tried to assault him.” Sharma added that when she tried to intervene, the group misbehaved with her and issued threats.

Based on the councillor’s complaint, an FIR was lodged under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 354 (assault or criminal force to a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

In a shocking incident, Kanhaiya Kumar, the Congress’ Lok Sabha candidate from North East Delhi, has been assaulted by seven to eight people and had black ink thrown at him while campaigning in the national capital. 

Videos of the assault, which took place in East Delhi’s New Usmanpur area on Friday, have now gone viral. Two of the alleged attackers have also released videos boasting that they had thrashed the Congress leader and said they did so because he had raised slogans on breaking up the country and had spoken against the Indian Army.   

In a complaint, Chhaya Gaurav Sharma, the AAP councillor from Brahmapuri, said she and Mr Kumar were leaving the party’s office in Kartar Nagar when seven to eight people garlanded Mr Kumar, threw ink on him and then thrashed him. She said three to four women were also injured, and a woman journalist fell into a drain. 

Ms Sharma alleged the attackers also dragged her to a corner using her stole and threatened to kill her and her husband. 

Delhi Police officials confirmed that they have received Ms Sharma’s complaint. They said they are verifying the videos and investigation has begun. 

In videos released after the incident, two of the alleged attackers – at least one of whom can be seen holding a garland in the footage of the assault – showed their reddened hands and said they did what they did because Mr Kanhaiya had raised slogans saying the country would be broken into parts. This was a reference to the alleged slogans raised at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 2016, when Mr Kumar was the JNU Students’ Union president.

“Hamne chaante ka jawaab diya hai (we have given an answer with our attack),” the two men said. Calling themselves ‘Sanatani lions’, they claimed Mr Kumar had also insulted the Indian Army and they had “treated” him.

The 37-year-old Congress leader is contesting against the BJP’s Manoj Tiwari, who is the sitting Member of Parliament from the constituency and also the lone Delhi MP who was not replaced by the party. Delhi will vote in the sixth phase on May 25.