By Hazel Gandhi
The video of a Congress MLA vigorously shaking hands with a woman while also blowing flying kisses is being shared with the misleading claim that he welcomed a new female member in the party inappropriately.
BOOM found that the claims are misleading; the video shows Odisha Congress MLA Taraprasad Bahinipati welcoming party member, Meenakshi Bahinipati who is also his wife.
The 30-second video shows the MLA felicitating the woman and trying to shake her hand, while she joins her hands. He then forcefully shakes her hand and ends with multiple flying kisses around the room. The video is viral on Facebook with the caption, "*Senior Congress leader welcoming the woman as Congress member with full respect π*π€£π€£π€£π€¦ββοΈπ€¦ββοΈπ€¦ββοΈ"
Click here to view.
The video is also circulating on X with similar captions.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the viral claims are misleading; the video shows Congress Odisha MLA Taraprasad Bahinipati with his wife and party member Meenakshi Bahinipati.
We ran a reverse image search of some key frames from the video on Google and found a video by News18 Odia on YouTube shared on December 29, 2022 that matched the viral video. The video's title, translated roughly from Odia to English reads, "Taraprasad Bahini Pati performed Flying Kiss from the stage"
We then scanned Taraprasad Bahinipati's Facebook page and found that he had shared the same video on December 28, 2022.
According to this post from his Facebook account from the same day, the event was held on the occasion of the 138th Congress Foundation Day.
We also found this photo posted on his account in December 2015 where he has tagged his wife, Meenakshi Bahinipati.
A comparison between this photo and the viral video confirms that the woman in the viral video was Meenakshi Bahinipati.
BOOM had previously debunked this video in June 2023 when it was falsely shared as a video from Karnataka. Read our fact check here. We had, at that time, reached out to Taraprasad Bahinipati who told BOOM, "This video is very old. It shows me and my wife Meenakshi Bahinipati."
This is not the only instance where Taraprasad Bahinipati has gone viral for his flying kisses. In November 2019, he blew kisses at SN Patro, speaker of the Odisha Legislative Assembly, after he was given the permission to raise the first question in the session.
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