On December 19, during the last week of Parliament's Winter Session, tensions between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and opposition Congress came to a head. The BJP accused Parliamentarians from the Congress party of pushing and shoving its party members amid ruckus in the premises. In the protests, which began over Amit Shah's remarks on B R Ambedkar, two BJP MPs and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said they were injured. While this was going on, a clip of Rahul Gandhi talking to reporters was being shared by BJP leaders, who claimed that the Congress leader admitted to shoving BJP MPs on camera. However, a fact check by Alt News found this claim to be false.
Amidst this, another video of Gandhi was doing the rounds on social media. In this, he can be seen breaking over 140 coconuts with bare hands. All in a matter of seconds. This video was shared by several supporters of the Congress and users on social media with the claim that it was a powerful display of strength by the party leader. In an apparent dig at the BJP, they said that the party's leaders were hospitalised when Gandhi did not actually even push them; "What would have happened if he really did?"
Congress spokesperson and media panelist Surendra Rajput shared the video on X (formerly Twitter) and said, "What if they actually got shoved?" (Archived link)
Social media influencer Acharya Confucius also shared the video and wrote, "It is good that he pushed lightly. If he really landed a punch, their skulls would have split open." (Archived link)
Digital creator Pardeep Kumar Sharma posted the video on his Facebook and Instagram accounts and wrote, "They were hospitalised after not getting pushed. What if they actually did?" (Archived link 1, Link 2)
The video received much traction on Facebook and X with similar captions.
Fact Check
Alt News searched for media reports related to the viral video, but neither did it find any press coverage on the leader achieving this feat nor any information on when and where this happened. Something like this would have received at least some press attention.
A reverse image search using frames from the viral video led us to similar clips showing other individuals in place of Gandhi.
We ultimately came across a YouTube short featuring similar footage from October 16 last year. Turns out, this was part of a full video uploaded on the Guinness World Records's YouTube channel on December 20, 2017 with a Hindi caption saying, "Most coconuts smashed in one minute". (Archived link 1, Archived link 2)
We then found a news report by NDTV India from December 23, 2017 featuring this video. The report says that the video shows Kerala resident P Dominic breaking 122 coconuts with his bare hands in just 60 seconds. The feat was recorded by Guinness World Records, the report adds. (Archived link)
On closely comparing the video shared by Guinness World Records and the latest viral clip of Rahul Gandhi, it is clear that the viral footage has been morphed. As you can see below the people surrounding Dominic in the footage from 2017 are the same as seen in the Rahul Gandhi footage on the left.
We also noticed that other similar videos with individuals other than Rahul Gandhi had a 'Viggle.AI' watermark, indicating that most of these were created with the help of artificial intelligence. In the Rahul Gandhi video, (screengrab above) the watermark seems to be covered with a 'Follow' sticker. (Archived link)
Thus the viral clip is actually a 2017 video of a man from Kerala smashing coconuts, featured in Guinness World Records. This old video was morphed using AI to make it seem like Rahul Gandhi was breaking the coconuts in a show of strength.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.