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 essential today than ever before.
A 39-second video allegedly showing Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal plotting against Rastriya Swatantra Party President Rabi Lamichhane is going viral on TikTok. Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Only a month after his appointment as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) Chairman Rabi Lamichhane on January 27 resigned after the Supreme Court deemed his citizenship certificate, which he produced to contest the November 20 parliamentary election, invalid.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @lijaoli4 posted a video showing CPN (Maoist) Chairman and incumbent Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal talking on his phone. Dahal says on the phone, “This Madhumalla or what it is. . . linking road to Rabi. The section from Jhapa has already been constructed with the backing from Subash Nembang, so it is imperative to build the road from this side and the people have started laying siege to them. The other thing is that the contractor who bagged the contract in the year 2068 [2012 AD] is the son-in-law of Renu Yadav.. Yes, you can do it, and I will send them at around 2pm. Please take it seriously and complete this task, and the stretch road is only seven kilometres long.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “See the plot against Rabi [Rashtriya Swatantra Party President Rabi Lamichhane]. Listen to him [Pushpa Kamal Dahal] carefully, his real face has been revealed.”
The video posted on February 14 has garnered 4747 likes, 818 users have shared it and 381 people have commented until the last count.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker conducted a search on YouTube and found a short video matching the viral video. The content of the conversation and the short video exactly matched the viral video. The video title reads, “Maoist leader Prachanda talking about Urlabari Madhumalla road extension.”
Taking a clue from this video, we conducted a search on google using Nepali keyword ‘road connecting Urlabari-Madhumalla and Rabi’ which threw up several news articles about the pathetic plight of the road connecting Urlabari of Morang district with Rabi bazaar of Panchthar district.
On checking an article dated 7 November, 2019 published on Shilapatra.com, we found that the road had been left in lurch for years after the contractor went out of contact.
Our research indicated that Prime Minister Dahal is talking about the Morang-Panchthar road and not about Rastriya Swatantra Party leader Rabi Lamichhane.
Further, we conducted a search on Facebook by using relevant keywords from our findings and found a video published on the Facebook page of Purbi Command Online uploaded on November 11, 2022. In the video, Dahal is heard talking about the road connecting Morang-Urlabari to Rabi in Panchthar district. The text accompanying the video claims that there has been a race between the political parties to take the credit for the construction of the road. We also found the video was uploaded in another facebook page named RK Comedy Jodi on November 12, 2022.
Our findings clearly indicate that the viral video shows Dahal conversing about the road linking Urlabari of Morang district with Rabi bazaar in Panchthar district.
Conclusion
The video claiming to show that Dahal is plotting against Rastriya Swatantra Party Chief Rabi Lamichhane is misleading and has been shared with a false context.
Result: Missing Context
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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 essential today than ever before.
