Fact Check: 2020 video of unemployment protest in Rajasthan goes viral as reaction to Karauli violence
India Today
A viral video on social media claimed to show people in Rajasthan boycotting the Congress party after the recent communal violence in Karauli.
A video shared widely on social media claimed that following the recent communal violence in Karauli, people in Rajasthan pledged not to vote for the Congress party in the upcoming elections.
On Facebook, people shared the video with Hindi captions like, "Following the Ram Navami incident in Karauli, we pledge to not vote for Congress."
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found the video was from 2020 and was not related to the Karauli violence. At a demonstration organised by the Rajasthan Berojgar Ekikrat Mahasangh, attendants pledged to boycott the Congress party in all upcoming elections.
The viral posts are archived here and here.
With the help of the InVID tool and reverse image search, we found the video shared on Facebook by people as early as in 2020. According to those posts, the video was from a demonstration organised by unemployed youth at Sikar, Rajasthan.
Around the 16-second-mark in the video, we noticed a banner featuring the words: "Berojgar Ekikrat Mahasangh”.
Taking these as clues, we looked for news reports on this. We found one published by National Dunia on November 17, 2020, that used a photo that appeared to be from the same video.
