Fact Check: Video shows flowers, garlands and not shoes, slippers being thrown at Akhilesh Yadav during roadshow

A video featuring Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav is being shared on social media with a false claim that it shows people throwing shoes and slippers at Yadav during his roadshow in Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj.

BOOM found the claim to be false. We spoke to local SP MLA Rekha Verma and a local reporter who confirmed that Akhilesh's supporters were throwing flowers and garlands during his roadshow.

Akhilesh Yadav is vying for the Kannauj seat against Subrata Pathak, the incumbent MP from the BJP. Kannauj has long been regarded as a bastion of the Samajwadi Party, despite the SP's loss of this seat in the 2019 elections.

The viral video shows Akhilesh Yadav seated atop a bus, acknowledging the greetings of the people.

An X user posted the video with a Hindi caption that translates to, "People threw shoes and slippers at Akhilesh Yadav in Kannauj. We strongly condemn the throwing of shoes and slippers."

Click here to view the post and here for an archive.

Fact Check

BOOM found that the video shows flowers and garlands are being thrown at the SP leader but not shoes and slippers.

Yadav did the roadshow on April 27, 2024, at Kannauj's Rasulabad in Uttar Pradesh.

We first ran a related keyword search on Google and found several video reports about the roadshow that Yadav did in Kannauj on April 27. However, none of the reports stated that shoes and slippers were thrown aiming at the SP leader during his roadshow amid the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Furthermore, we observed that the viral video featured a watermark from the Instagram account vikasyadavauraiyawale. We then found that the viral video was posted on May 2, 2024, on the said account. The archive link of the post can be seen here.

Nowhere in the video's caption was it mentioned that shoes and slippers were being thrown at Yadav during his roadshow. Upon reviewing screenshots from the video, it also became evident that flowers and garlands were being tossed during the roadshow.

Upon reviewing screenshots from the video, it also became evident that flowers and garlands were being tossed during the roadshow.

For further clarification, we spoke to local Kannauj reporter Pankaj Srivastava. Pankaj told BOOM, "This roadshow took place in Bidhuna assembly constituency of Kannauj Lok Sabha seat. I was present there when Akhilesh was addressing the people while sitting on his Samajwadi Rath (bus). During this time, local MLA Rekha Verma was also present with him. There was no incident of throwing shoes or slippers at him. Everyone was throwing flowers and garlands."

We then spoke to SP MLA Rekha Verma about the incident. Verma said, "At the event, people threw flowers and garlands. They were also raising slogans in support of the SP."

The video of Akhilesh Yadav's roadshow in Rasulabad, Kannauj can also be watched on the Samajwadi Party's official YouTube channel.

Disclaimer: This story was originally published by Boom, and republished by HT Digital as part of the Shakti Collective.