A video is being widely shared on social media in which people are vandalising a stage made for a political public meeting.
Those sharing the video claim that it shows farmers vandalising Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini’s public meeting in Haryana ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
An X user shared the video with the caption, “Farmers entered and vandalised the pandal of Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini, silence in the BJP. Run PM Narendra Modi. You are going to go on June 4. (translated from Hindi)”
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The viral video is old and shows people vandalising the stage set for former Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar’s public meeting.
On closely observing the video, we saw a banner with the text ‘Kisan Mahapanchayat’ on the backdrop of the stage.
Taking this hint, we searched with appropriate keywords and found a report published by India Today on January 10, 2021, titled ‘Watch: Protesters ransack venue of Haryana CM Khattar’s Karnal rally, police use teargas to disperse crowd.’
The report stated that ‘Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s meeting with farmers (Kisan Mahapanchayat) at a village near Karnal was cancelled after protesters vandalised the venue.’
We compared the video uploaded by India Today to the viral video and found similarities.
We also found that the incident reported by The Economic Times on January 10, 2021. According to the report, “Protestors vandalised the stage and stormed the helipad in Haryana’s Kaimla village, forcing chief minister Manohar Lal to cancel his ‘Kisan Maha Panchayat’ programme in his home constituency of Karnal.”
We also found the video being shared on Twitter (now X) as far back as January 12.
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral video is old.