Video of BJP's Dinesh Lal Yadav blaming population growth for unemployment is not a deepfake

What is the claim?

On April 15, 2024, Indian Youth Congress President Srinivas BV took to X (formerly Twitter) to share a video of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament (MP) Dinesh Lal Yadav. In the video, he is giving an interview to a journalist in which he says that unemployment in India is rising because of population growth. 

Yadav, who is fighting the upcoming Indian general election from the Azamgarh seat in Uttar Pradesh, can be heard saying, “Tell me whether Modi ji or Yogi ji has even one child... They have stopped unemployment. They have said that we will not increase it. So, who is increasing unemployment? The ones who are giving birth to children.” (Translated from Hindi)

As the X post went viral, BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya and BJP leader Tajinder Singh Bagga took to the platform to claim that the video was a deepfake and that it was being shared to “mislead people, create unrest and sow divisions in the society.”

Yadav himself took to X to claim that the video was a fake, saying that the lip movement did not match the voice and that promoting such ‘fake videos’ had become a ‘trend’ for those in Congress. All the leaders called for action to be taken against those sharing the clip. 

Posts by Malviya and Yadav claiming that the video is fake. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

Hindi news channel India TV also aired the clip and called the video a 'deepfake'. 

However, we found that the video being shared is not a deepfake, and the original unedited footage shows Yadav making the remark. However, it may be noted that the viral video has been created by stitching together two parts of the original clip, though this did not alter the context or the meaning of Yadav’s remarks.  

 What did we find?

We found that the full interview was posted on the YouTube channel ‘Soul Up Hindi’, run by journalist Santosh Kushwaha on April 13, 2024. The title of the video is “बेरोजगारी के सवाल पर भड़के सांसद निरहुआ कहा कहा योगी मोदी जी की तरह मत करो पैदा बच्चे” (Politician Nirahua gets angry when questioned about unemployment, says don’t have kids like Modi and Yogi.)  The remarks in question can be found at the very end of the video, around the 11:00 minute mark.

The clip being shared on X is 58 seconds long, while the full interview is over 11 minutes long. It clearly shows the journalist reporting from a road under a flyover, approaching Yadav’s vehicle and taking the leader’s interview while the leader remains seated in the front seat of the car. While Yadav’s face goes in and out of focus at several points in the footage, we found no signs of the video being manipulated. 

Further, we noted that the viral segment showed up at around the 11-minute mark of this YouTube video. Yadav can be seen and heard clearly making the unemployment-children remarks. Further, Yadav’s lip movement matches perfectly with the audio.

However, it may be noted that the clip on X has been edited to join two different parts of the longer video. Yadav’s comments about the prime minister and Uttar Pradesh chief minister not having children had essentially been made after the rest of his comments, but the viral clip has them placed at the onset. However, this does not manipulate or misrepresent what Yadav was saying. 

Logically Facts also contacted Kushwaha, who confirmed that he had recorded the interview. He also shared the original video with us. We checked the metadata of this video and found that it was recorded at 3.38 p.m. on April 13, 2024, the same day it was uploaded on the YouTube channel. 

The metadata of the video shows that it was shot on April 13, 2024.

What do experts and tools say about the video?

The Misinformation Combat Alliance's (MCA) Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU), of which Logically Facts is a part, ran the video through four tools and all of them concluded that the video is not AI-generated. 

Further, Logically Facts reached out to Dr Mayank Vatsa, a professor of Computer Science at IIT Jodhpur, who told us that while the video shared on X is edited, it is not a deepfake. Remember, the viral video does stitch two different parts of the video but this does not alter the context or the meaning of Yadav’s remarks.  

The verdict

We accessed the original footage which shows Yadav making the comment. Further, there are no visible signs of manipulation in the video and an expert confirmed that the video is edited but not a deepfake. 

(Update: The story has been updated to include an archive link of India TV's bulletin)