Factcheck: Awadhesh Prasad MP bursts into tears after learning that his son lost in the by-election! Know the truth

Claim

Awadesh Prasad of the Samajwadi Party had jolted the BJP after securing a thumping win from the Faizabad constituency in the last general election held in 2024. The Ram Mandir consecrated by Prime Minister Modi at Ayodhya falls under the ambit of this constituency. By defeating the BJP at Ayodhya, the win had sent feelers that the BJP failed to capitalize on religious sentiments after the consecration of Ram Temple. Afterward, the MP had been subjected to savage online abuse for his electoral feat.
Now, a video is going viral on social media, in which he allegedly breaks down in front of the media after his son failed in the byelection at Milkipur. The election was necessitated after the MP vacated the seat after winning the Lok Sabha seat, and his son Ajit Prasad was thrashed by BJP candidate Chandhrabhanu Paswan by a record margin of 61000 votes.

The video was widely shared commenting that MP was sobbing uncontrollably after his son failed to retain his pocket borough. The users claimed that the MP was punished for his arrogance against Hinduism. While others alleged that his tears were crocodile tears and that such people would be handed hefty defeats in the future too.

Similar videos could be seen here and here.

Fact check

The investigation team first analyzed the details of the election to confirm the viral message. As per the news report, the Milkipur byelection was conducted on February 5, 2025, along with the Delhi election. The result was announced on February 8, 2025. the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Milkipur assembly bypoll in Ayodhya on Saturday, defeating the Samajwadi Party by a margin of 61,710 votes. BJP candidate Chandrabhanu Paswan polled 146,397 votes against his main rival Ajeet Prasad of the Samajwadi Party, who secured 84,687 votes.
All important national and regional media reported the election with much importance.
Then the team checked the originality of the video and took out key frames of the video to crosscheck the claim. By analyzing the keyframes it became clear that the video dated back to February 2, 2025; two days before the polling and five days before the announcement of the result.

Moving ahead, the team analyzed the video and found credible news reports at The Hindu, Times of India, Hindustan Times and Lallantop. Hindustan Times reported that ‘Ayodhya (Faizabad) MP Awadhesh Prasad was seen weeping in front of reporters after a naked body of a 22-year-old Dalit woman was found in a desolate canal near her village in the Uttar Pradesh city’. The news reports were dated 3 February 2025.
As per news reports, the deceased’s family said that the woman had been missing since Thursday night. Following this, they launched a search operation and her brother-in-law found her body in a small canal, just about 500 meters away from their village on Saturday morning.

Her hands and legs were tied with ropes and her body had several deep cuts, the family claimed.
Villagers who draped and shifted the body noticed that one of her legs was fractured, whole her elder sister and two other women fainted at the sight of the horrific state of the corpse.
The MP had expressed shock over the gruesome incident and jumped into tears over his inability to protect the woman. It is also audible in the video that he will take up the case with the prime minister and will resign if actions are not taken. Details of the report can be found here.
The incident happened on February 2 and the opposition had termed the event as drama.

Further, the team found the entire video uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Dainik Jagran.
Then, the team went through all the press conferences of the MP after the result was announced. This search confirmed that no such event happened after the result.

Conclusion

From the fact-check of DFRAC, it is clear that the video showing Faizabad MP Awadesh Prasad crying is not linked with his son’s defeat in the Milkipur byelection. The video dates back to February 2 when MP burst into tears after the gruesome death of a Dalit woman in Ayodhya. But the announcement of the result happened on February 8. So the viral posts claiming that Awadesh Prasad crying after the failure of his son are misleading.