Fact Check: 4-Year-Old Video of actor Prakash Raj being linked to Karnataka elections

New Delhi (Vishvas News): Amid the ongoing Karnataka Assembly election, a 13-second video clip is going viral with the claim that actor Prakash Raj has urged the people to not vote for Congress. Vishvas News in its investigation found that the viral clip is part of a longer, four-year-old video. This video has nothing to do with the recent elections. Four years ago, actor Prakash Raj released this video accusing the Congress of spreading lies against him.

Claim:

Facebook user Premayogan shared the viral video on May 5, 2023. The user shared the video with the caption saying, “A message for Karnataka voters.”

The archived link to the post can be accessed here.

Investigation

To know the truth about the viral video, Vishvas News scanned the social media accounts of Prakash Raj and found the original video uploaded on his Twitter account on April 17, 2019. “FAKE NEWS by CONGRESS.. look at the dirty politics of this party. SHAME ON CONGRESS.. HAVE SENT THE COMPLAINT TO ELECTION COMMISSION WITH PROOF ..please spread and share to counter DIRTY POLITICS,” he wrote in the tweet.

In the video, Prakash Raj could be heard accusing the Congress. “Congress is spreading wrong information about me. Congress is doing dirty politics in Bangalore Central. A person who claims to be Rizwan’s PA is Mazhar Ahmed. He had taken a picture of me and Rizwan at a candidate’s meeting. Then, shared that picture and said that Prakash Raj is supporting Congress, so don’t waste your vote on Congress. I am not associated with any political party. I am independent. I take this dirty politics of Congress party and Rizwan seriously. I have complained to the Election Commission against this act and please don’t believe such rumours,” he said.

Further, we searched on Google with related keywords. During this, we found a report related to the viral video published on the website of Dainik Jagran on April 17, 2019. According to the report, “Actor-turned-politician Prakash Raj said he has filed a complaint with the Election Commission against a person who spread fake news through a picture. The name of this person is Mazhar. It is alleged that Mazhar spread rumours about Prakash Raj joining the Congress.

We contacted local journalist Yasir Khan from Karnataka for more details. He told us that the viral video is almost 4 years old. It has nothing to do with the elections to be held in Karnataka.

At the end of the investigation, we scanned the page of the user who shared the viral video with the misleading claim. We found that he was associated with the BJP.