Last year was bumper for Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters. They used the social media and their friends in the mainstream media to lie like no one was fact-checking.
But we were.
Here are some of their lies spread in the year 2016:
1. PM Modi insulted Kejriwal and a few other CMs by making them keep their mobile phones out
Prime Minister Modi had chaired the 11th inter-state council meeting in July this year. There was a cold meeting between the two, but things appeared normal otherwise. However, about four days later, Kejriwal suddenly claimed that he and some of the other CMs weren’t allowed to bring in their mobile phones while there was no such restrictions for others. Truth is that no one is allowed to carry electronic gadgets inside the PMO since Indira Gandhi’s time.
2. AAP deliberately misreading data to prove Modi’s degree fake
Like Donald Trump had once made an issue of birth certificate of Barack Obama, Arvind Kejriwal made an issue of Narendra Modi’s educational certificates. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP President Amit Shah had to chair a joint press conference to bring out Modi’s mark-sheets and graduation certificates. But the party and its supporters continued to claim what they wanted to believe.
3. Kejriwal spreads news of a judge’s transfer as a case of Modi govt attacking judiciary
Chief Justice of Uttarakhand KM Joseph, who had foiled the central government’s move to establish President’s rule in Uttarakhand, was transferred to Hyderabad. Some people spun this transfer as politically motivated and Kejriwal helped spread this via his trademark ‘this is shocking’ remark. The issue was linked to judiciary’s independence. But former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju made a few inquiries and found that the transfer was initiated by the judge himself as he suffered health aliments and Uttarakhand weather was making it worse.
4. Kejriwal shares fake video that showed JNU’s ABVP activists chanting “Pakistan Zindabad”
At the height of the JNU controversy when the loony leftist students of the JNU were accused to have shouted anti-India slogans and sympathised with terrorists, Kejriwal and his team shared a video that claimed that alleged ABVP activists were shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans. It was found that the slogan was more likely to be ‘Bartiya Court Zindabad’ than ‘Pakistan Zindabad’, and it can’t be claimed with certainty who was shouting those slogans. Even a DM level inquiry observed that the slogan can not be heard clearly.
5. Senior leaders of AAP share false news about a Dalit girl getting assaulted
Maybe in order to promote enmity between castes that can benefit them in Punjab elections, senior AAP leaders like Sanjay Singh and Alka Lamba shared a news story of a poor girl Dalit girl assaulted by an ex-Akali Dal sarpanch. It was later found that the photo attached with the news was actually taken from a YouTube video of a 16-year-old girl, who was beaten and then burned to death in Guatemala by a lynch mob.
6. AAP spreads news from 2015 to spread panic about demonetisation
Arvind Kejriwal made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like the demonetisation step. He vowed to prove that it was causing huge inconvenience to people and the government was isolated. His party shared a post on its official Facebook page that claimed that RBI was planning to go on a 1 day mass protest against Modi government’s interference on November 19th. Only that it was a news related to an incident around Nov 19th 2015. And even after being called out and heavily panned, AAP hasn’t deleted the post till date.
7. Kejriwal spreads picture of a dead robber claiming he was a common citizen who committed suicide
Kejriwal’s resolve to prove demonetisation as disaster was found more resolute than his earlier stated objective of fighting corruption. As seen in the above article, he and his party were willing to lie for the same, and that’s what he did when he spread a photo of a dead robber and claimed that an innocent citizen had committed suicide due to cash crunch. His lies were called out by us, but since the mainstream media doesn’t attack him for his lies, his tweet spreading this fake information is still there.
8. Modi Govt in nexus with Chinese firms for allowing Chinese Manja’s import
There have been incidents of people’s throats getting slit due to ‘Chinese’ Manja used for flying kites, and this is a problem that needs to be addressed. But if there is a problem, there is only one solution for AAP – blame Modi. Deputy Chief Minister and AAP leader Manish Sisodia in the state assembly claimed that Modi government was ‘hand in gloves’ with ‘Chinese Manja Mafia’ and was continuously importing it. This claim was re-tweeted by Kejriwal. The fact is that Chinese Manja actually doesn’t come from China and made in India only; it is named so as its cheaper as compared to other Manjas.
These are just a few lies. On other occasions, Kejriwal and AAP attacked companies like Ola and PayTM by linking them to Modi, while there have been numerous “is it true?” rumours spread by Arvind Kejriwal that we are not even listing here.
