Lighthouse Journalism came across a widely shared video on social media featuring former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party leader, the late Mulayam Singh Yadav. In the 35-second clip, he is heard saying, “We are enemies of Hindus and stand with Muslims. Our magazine calls us a party of criminals. Everywhere—on TV, in magazines—they say Mulayam Singh is a criminal. I am a criminal.”
However, our investigation revealed that this is an old, incomplete clip being shared with a misleading claim.
Claim:
X user Janardan Mishra shared the video clip with a misleading claim.
Other users too are sharing the video with the same claim.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by extracting keyframes from the video and running a reverse image search on the keyframes. However, we could not find anything.
Then we ran a keyword search, which led us to old videos from the discussion in the Parliament.
We then checked two videos and their transcripts uploaded on the YouTube channel ‘Digital Sansad – Parliament of India’.
In the video titled: Shri Mulayam Singh Yadav on 27.03.1998 – Discussion on Confidence Motion, it was then that the visuals from the viral video were seen at around 27 mins.
One line, where he says, “Hamare baare me to aapne jaane kya kya bol diya hai!” (You have said much about us) has been removed from the viral video. This line can be heard at 28 min 25 sec in the original video. It is after that, that Mulayam Singh says, we are enemies of Hindus and stand with Muslims.
We also found the English transcript of this speech, in the Parliament Library’s (digital version), book, ‘Lok Sabha Debates‘.
Mulayam Singh Yadav’s speech was on pages 38 to 49.
The book mentions the part on page 46: SHRI MULAYAM SINGH YADAV: I said so because our party is branded as a party of the criminals. In every magazine and on television it is shown that there are the criminals belonging to Mulayam Singh party. We are nothing but criminals …… (interruption) but you claim to be a person of the clean image. Tell us about yourself what you are. Much is said about us that we are enemies of the Hindus and friends of the Muslims. We can say with pride that… … (lnterruptions)
The line, “Much is said about us” has been removed from the viral clip.
Conclusion: An old, edited video of Mulayam Singh Yadav speaking in the Parliament on 27th March 1998 is being shared on social media platforms with misleading claims.
