UP CM Yogi Adityanath Threatened to Join SP? Fake Screenshot Goes Viral

The news channel 'K News India' has issued a clarification saying that the viral screengrab is fake.

The claim states that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has warned to join the Samajwadi Party.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, a viral screenshot of a news bulletin is being shared on social media claiming that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath threatened to join the Samajwadi Party (SP) after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the chief minister will be changed in the upcoming polls.

However, we found the screengrab taken from a news channel named 'K News India' is a fake one and the channel has also clarified that it has not aired any such news.

CLAIM

The text in the breaking news graphic plate, in Hindi, reads, "अमित शाह ने की मुख्यमंत्री बदलने की बात तो योगी आदित्यनाथ ने दे डाली सपा ज्वाइन करने की धमकी. लखनऊ- डैमेज कंट्रोल करने में जुटी भाजपा.)

(Translation: When Amit Shah talked about changing the CM, Yogi Adityanath threatened to join the Samajwadi Party. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now gone into damage control in Lucknow.)

An archive of the tweet can be seen here. 

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

Several social media users have shared the photo, which is widely circulated on Twitter and Facebook with similar claims. The archived links can be seen here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Since, a half logo with the letter 'K New' is visible in the viral screengrab, we looked for the news logo on YouTube and came across the YouTube channel of 'K News India', a TV news channel.

We then scrolled through the videos on their YouTube channel to look into any such news aired by the channel, but couldn't find any.

Next, we compared the viral screengrab with a breaking news graphic plate of the news channel from YouTube.

We matched the viral bulletin with a real bulletin and found that while the 'Breaking News' band and the colour scheme was kept the same, the font doesn't match.

Fake bulletin screengrab (L), K News India bulletin screengrab (R). 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Next, we looked into the Twitter handle of the channel and found a tweet on 12 January in Hindi that clarified that the screengrab is fake and action will be taken against those spreading fake news and thereby causing damage to the channel's name.

Further, we also looked for any such news recently, and couldn't find any.

Clearly, a fake picture is being shared to claim that UP CM Adityanath threatened to join the SP.

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