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.
A nine-second video claiming that Deputy Mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) Sunita Dangol has supported KMC mayor Balen Shah challenging her party Chairman KP Sharma Oli, is going viral on TikTok. The video further claims that Dangol, who was elected to the post of KMC deputy mayor on Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) ticket, has told UML Chairman Oli to hand over the responsibility of developing the nation to the youths and now the country won’t make any progress under them [old generation leaders]. Newschecker found the claim to be false.
An independent candidate, Balen Shah had been elected as mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City in the local body election held earlier this year in May. He defeated popular candidates of major political parties including the CPN-UML and Nepali Congress with a huge margin, while CPN-UML candidate Sunita Dangol had been elected as deputy mayor of Kathmandu.
In this context, TikTok user @roman..offical posted a news clip video about Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s deputy mayor Sunita Dangol. The news bulletin like audio is heard saying, “Deputy Mayor Sunita Dangol says the overhead bridges within the Kathmandu Metropolitan City should be immediately repaired, and reform works should be carried out at the earliest as the bridges are not secure.” Text superimposed on the video reads, “Good news, Sunita Dangol, who was elected as deputy mayor of Kathmandu from CPN-UML ticket, has supported mayor Balen Shah, challenging KP Sharma Oli [the chairman of CPN-UML]. She told Oli to hand over the responsibility of developing the country to the young generation as the old generation are not capable of developing the nation.
The video posted on December 5 has garnered 6684 likes, 27 shares and 53 users have commented on it.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker closely observed the video and noticed the logo of News24 Television on the top left corner. Taking it as a clue, we conducted a search on the YouTube channel of News24 Television and found a video whose frames from 0.36-minute timestamp exactly matched the viral video. On listening to the video posted on December 4, we found that it was the evening news bulletin of major news headlines from the day. However, the news didn’t say anything about deputy mayor Dangol challenging her party leader KP Sharma Oli and saying that it was time for him and leaders of his generation to step down and hand over the power to the younger generation as claimed in the viral video.
Further, we checked the social media pages of Dangol including Twitter and Facebook. But we didn’t find anything as claimed in the viral video. Newshceker reached out to the personal aide to Dangol, Bishwo Shakya, who confirmed that she has never spoken about her party’s chairman Oli.
Our findings pointed out that the claims made in the viral video and the portion of the news bulletin it carries were poles apart.
Conclusion
The video claiming that Kathmandu’s deputy mayor Sunita Dangol has challenged her party Chairman KP Oli and asked him to hand over the responsibility to the youths for the development of the country is false.
Result: False
Sources
News24 TV
Sunita Dangol’s Facebook
Sunita Dangol’s Twitter
Phone contact with Bishwo Shakya
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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 more essential today than ever before.
