Recently, soon after he joined the Congress party, perennial Modi-critic Shatrughan Sinha started praising Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man responsible for India’s partition and claimed he had contributed significantly towards Indian Independence.
Now, another disgruntled BJP leader, who had quit the party and joined the Congress, has started spreading fake news and making bizarre allegations that have the potential to incite communal tensions.
Udit Raj shared a viral video of an incident that occurred two years earlier to claim that it showed BJP MLA Anil Upadhyaya and his goons thrashing a Dalit man for buying a new car.
Gujarat BJP MLA Anil Upadhyaya and his goons are beating a Dalit boy because they were unable to digest that he bought a new car pic.twitter.com/ia7SUicHKp
— Dr. Udit Raj, MP (@Dr_Uditraj) May 14, 2019
In reality, the scenes depicted an incident in Ahmedabad in 2017, where a man thrashed his son-in-law for the latter’s alleged ill-treatment of the man’s daughter. The father, enraged by the cruelty that was allegedly being inflicted upon her by her husband, decided that enough was enough. The incident was reported by Times of India as well when it happened.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckGkJy3YMXo]
Moreover, Anil Upadhyaya mentioned in Udit Raj’s tweet appears to be a rather curious individual and certainly has been very mischievous in recent times. Sometimes he is accused of beating up a cop as a Congress MLA, other times he is accused of capturing a booth as a BJP MLA.
However, there is not a single shred of evidence that such an individual even exists. Most likely, he is a fictional character who was invented to spread fake news.
Udit Raj has been angry with the BJP ever since he was denied a ticket by the party for the Lok Sabha Elections. However, given his conduct since then, it appears to have been a wise decision. While Shatrughan Sinha’s Congress membership led to his praising Jinnah, for Udit Raj, it led to him spreading bizarre fake news. It appears Congress membership tends to come with its own side effects.
