A statement attributed to Union Minister and JDU leader Rajiv Ranjan, also known as Lallan Singh, is going viral on the social media site Facebook. Users claim that Lallan Singh said that Nitish Kumar is not a candidate for the post of Chief Minister. In the viral video, Lallan Singh can be heard saying, “Nitish Kumar is not a candidate, he is not, he is not.”
Sharing this video, a user named Zishan Ali Laddu wrote, ‘Nitish Kumar is not a candidate yet! MLAs will choose their new CM! – Lallan Singh, dressed in BJP colours, played the JDU game!’
Apart from this, this video is also being shared extensively by many other users, which can be seen
here, here, here, and here.
Fact Check:
After carefully listening to the viral video, the DFRAC team found that Lallan Singh’s statement did not clearly state for which post he had not named Nitish Kumar as a candidate. Our team then noticed that the video featured the InKhabar logo. For further investigation, our team viewed the video on
InKhabar ‘s YouTube channel. We found Lallan Singh’s full statement, which was uploaded on September 2, 2022.
Lallan Singh’s full statement reads, “Nitish Kumar is not the Prime Ministerial candidate, he is not, he is not, he is not.” He then targets the central government in response to questions from journalists. This statement was made when the JDU was part of the Grand Alliance government in Bihar.
Our team then contacted JDU Legislative Council member Khalid Anwar. He stated that the opposition should not spread such fake news about Lallan Singh during the election season. Lallan Singh shares the ideology of Jananayak Karpuri Thakur. He claimed that these fake news stories will have no impact on the public and that, given the development work underway in Bihar, the JDU will be re-elected.
Conclusion:
DFRAC’s fact check revealed that an old and cropped statement attributed to Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan, also known as Lallan Singh, has been shared on social media. Lallan Singh did not say that Nitish Kumar is not a candidate for the post of Chief Minister. Therefore, the user’s claim is misleading.
