Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Video shows Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal praising the work of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane.
Fact
Video actually shows PM Dahal delivering his speech at the 16th National Development Council. He did not praise, nor refer to home minister Lamichhane
A two-minute-and-11-second long video purportedly showing Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal praising the work of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane and encouraging him to not give up, is going viral on TikTok.
The main opposition party, Nepali Congress, has been demanding the formation of a panel to look into the allegations of cooperative fraud against Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane ever since he took charge of the home ministry in March, while the ruling parties have been blaming the opposition of blowing the no-issue out of proportion.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @nirajkarkii55 posted a video showing Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal delivering a speech at an event. The text superimposed on the video reads, “Prachanda [Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal] fervently praises the job of Rabi Lamichhane [Home Minister], and tells him not to give up.”
In his speech, PM Dahal can be heard saying, “Definitely, I feel that we are stuck in a self-contradiction. Nepal initiated the process of planned development at a time when the socialist forces were gaining victories in international politics. There was a trend of planned development across the world—be it in Russia or China after its socialist revolution. Though there is a relationship between socialism and planned development, it was brought in Nepal under feudalism and autocracy. The planned development has been facing a contradiction in Nepal from the very beginning due to political, ideological and cultural situations…”
The video posted on April 26 has garnered 77 likes and four people have commented until the last count. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
We noticed that the speech by the PM in the viral video has no reference to Lamichhane, raising our doubts.
We then split the video into several keyframes and conducted reverse image searches on them. However, the search led us to a video, dated April 25, 2024, published on a YouTube channel named Lokpath.
On checking the video, we found that the video showed Prime Minister Dahal delivering his inaugural speech at the 16th National Development Council. Though the thumbnail image of the video resembled the frame seen in the viral video, we did not find the portion of PM Dahal’s speech matching the viral video.
Taking a clue, we conducted a search on YouTube and found a longer version of the prime minister’s speech from the same event, published on the channel @BBTOfficial. On verifying, we found that the viral video matched the YouTube video from 4.25-minute onwards. But we found no reference to Rabi Lamichhane.
We also found another article published on Rising Nepal online from the 16th National Development Council meeting carrying an image of Prime Minister Dahal which showed a larger frame of PM Dahal delivering his inaugural speech.
However, we couldn’t find Dahal praising or supporting Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane in any of these reports covering the PM’s speech (See here, here, here).
Thus, our findings clearly show that the viral video showed Prime Minister Dahal speaking at the 16th National Development Council meeting, and does not refer to Rabi Lamichhane in his speech at all.
Conclusion
The viral video doesn’t show Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ praising the work of Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane. The video actually shows PM Dahal speaking at the inauguration of 16th National Development Council and has made no reference to the home minister.
Result: Missing Context
Sources
BBT Official YouTube, April 26, 2024
Lokpath TV, April 25, 2024
Rising Nepal, April 25, 2024
If you would like us to fact check a claim, give feedback or lodge a complaint, email us at [email protected] You can also visit the Contact Us page and fill the form.
Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
