Video of Andhra Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy ‘admitting to cheating people' is edited

By: Rohith Gutta
April 23 2024

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Screenshot of a social media post claiming that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan 'admitted' to cheating the people of the state (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

What is the claim?

A 16-second clip of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) leader, is shared with the claim that it shows him admitting to cheating the people of the south Indian state. The video is circulating when the Indian general elections are ongoing and Andhra Pradesh is gearing up for state polls to be held on May 13. 

In the video, we can hear Reddy saying, "In these elections, as your son (referring to himself) cheated everyone and as there was no good work to credit, he is going solo in the war of elections." Archived versions of some social media posts sharing this video can be accessed here and here.

 Screenshot of a social media post making the viral claim. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the video is edited. In the original video, Reddy accused the opposition alliance — comprising the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the Jana Sena Party (JSP) — of cheating.

What did we find?

We ran the video's keyframes through reverse image search and came across the original video of Reddy speaking at an election campaign meeting in Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, on April 19. The meeting was part of YSRCP's Memanta Siddham (We Are All Ready)' election campaign bus tour. The Telugu news channel Sakshi live-streamed the event, and we can see the channel's watermark in the viral video as well. 

In the original video, however, we found that Reddy's remarks made between the 22:55 timestamp and the 23:21 mark have been cropped and stitched together to change the meaning of what he actually said.

Reddy can be heard saying in Telugu, "In these elections, as your son (referring to himself) has done good work for every household, he is going solo in the war of elections. Since they have cheated everyone, and as there was no good work to credit, they have come together as an alliance (referring to the oppositional alliance). Your son is solo, whereas there are many foxes and jackals in the fray."

The part where he says, "cheated everyone and as there was no good work to credit," has been selected and inserted into the sentence where he was talking about himself, thereby giving the impression that he is admitting to cheating the people. In the original video, however, he criticized the opposition alliance.

Logically Facts has previously debunked many similarly edited video clips related to the upcoming Andhra Pradesh elections. A few of them can be read here, here, and here. 

The verdict

An edited video clip is shared to claim that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy admitted to cheating people. However, in the original video, he accused the opposition alliance of cheating the people. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.