Fact Check: Did Atishi Advocate Voting for ‘Goons’ to Defeat PM Modi in 2024 Lok Sabha Elections?

A video of Atishi, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is getting viral on social media. It is said that the Delhi minister is telling people to “vote for goons or thugs” to beat the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections 2024. However, the fact check showed that the movie that went viral has nothing to do with the current general elections.

What is going viral?

A video of Delhi Education Minister Atishi was shared on social media by a number of people. In it, she can be heard saying that people should not be afraid to vote for goons or thugs to beat the BJP.

“#Shocking” was written under a movie shared on Facebook. What Atishi Marlena really looks like, after promising to fight thugs and goons and change the system. It’s clear that she wants to beat the BJP at all costs, so she tells people to close their eyes and vote for thugs and goons.

Someone else who shared the video said, “If you have to vote for a jerk, then vote for the jerk because you have to beat Modi—Atishi Marlena and she came to change politics.”

Fact Check

When the facts were checked, it was found that this is an old movie that was shared on social media with the wrong connection to the Lok Sabha elections that are still going on. Okhla Times posted the first movie on its YouTube channel five years ago. The was posted on April 19, 2019, and said that Atishi Marlena, who was running for Lok Sabha from East Delhi in 2019, was giving a speech at Tikona Park.

The truth is that this movie is from the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In this, Atishi said, “The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) can only beat the BJP together in Uttar Pradesh. No one else can do it.” What should we have done if we voted UP? We should vote for the SP-BSP alliance no matter who they run for office. I was talking to a friend from Uttar Pradesh, and he told me that the candidate from our area is a jerk. What should we do? I told you to vote for the alliance without thinking about it because we need to beat the BJP in this election.

In this situation, it is clear that an old video of Atishi, the leader of the AAP, has been shared on social media and wrongly linked to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections that are still going on.

What came out in fact check?

The widely spread claim that Atishi told people to vote for thugs to beat the BJP has been disproved by fact-checking. On social media, an old film of Atishi, the leader of the AAP, is being shared with the false idea that it has anything to do with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.