Fact Check: Viral Post Claiming Randeep Singh Surjewala Made Anti-Brahmin Remarks is Fake

New Delhi (Vishvas News). A video clip of Congress MP Randeep Singh Surjewala is circulating on social media, falsely claiming that he called for the killing of the Brahmin community. 

Vishvas News investigated the viral post and found the claim to be false. In reality,  Surjewala was criticizing the BJP and referring to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, stating that Brahmin leadership in the state has been sidelined, not calling for any violence against the community.

What is going viral

Facebook user Suresh Purohit posted a video on October 7 and claimed, “Controversial video of Congress Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala goes viral, in which the Congress MP is talking about killing the Brahmin community. There is huge anger in the Brahmin community against the Congress.”

 Its archived version can be seen here.

Investigation

Vishvas News began by searching for the original video clip with keyword search. The original footage was found on Aaj Tak’s YouTube channel, uploaded on September 30, 2024. In this news report, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala can be seen criticising the BJP at the Brahmin Samaj conference in Kaithal, Haryana. Surjewala accused the ruling BJP in Haryana of being anti-Brahmin and also referenced the Yogi government in Uttar Pradesh.

From 45 seconds into the video, Surjewala can be heard saying, “Where has the entire Brahmin leadership of BJP gone in Uttar Pradesh? Go and ask each and every person. Ask Kanpur, Banaras, Lucknow, Meerut. Yogi Adityanath has killed each and every person one by one. The BJP people have rejected each and every person by selecting them. They have ended the leadership of each and every person one by one. Because everyone knows that this leadership comes from the biggest state of this country and that is Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, if Adityanath has to be kept alive, the Brahmin community will have to be killed.”

During the investigation, we also found Randeep Singh Surjewala’s original statement on his X-handle. In this post dated 29 September 2024, Surjewala wrote “The reality of the BJP is that there isn’t a single ally who hasn’t been betrayed by them. There have been atrocities against the Brahmin community not only in Haryana but also in our neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh, where the oppression of Brahmins under the Yogi government is a common story across every district”

During the open keyword search, we found many news reports related to Surjewala’s statement. A news report published on the website of Navbharat Times on September 29 stated that Surjewala said, “In Haryana, atrocities have been committed against the Brahmin community. In our neighboring state Uttar Pradesh, under the Yogi government, oppression of Brahmins is a story of every district. Questioning the Brahmin leadership of BJP in Uttar Pradesh, he said, what happened to the Brahmin leadership of the entire UP? Where is BJP’s Brahmin leadership in UP? Go and ask each person. BJP people have rejected each person there one by one. Their leadership has been destroyed.” The full report can be read here.

Vishvas News continued its investigation and reached out to Girish Kumar from the Congress social media team. He clarified that, if the viral video is listened to carefully, it becomes evident that Randeep Singh Surjewala was not speaking against the Brahmin community but in support of it. The false narrative is being spread by circulating incomplete portions of his statement.

At the end we scanned the profile of Facebook user Suresh Purohit. He has more than 300 friends. No more information was found about this account.