By Sachin Baghel
A cropped video of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's slip of tongue while speaking at a Teachers' Day event is viral with misleading claims that he has been disrespectful towards his teacher during childhood.
In the video Chouhan can be heard saying, "Like I said, I studied in a government school in Jait; even in Bhopal, I studied in a government school. Respected Ratanchand Jain is still our guruji. I would go and all of us would put our feet on his head." BOOM found that the video has been mischievously clipped to omit the part where Chouhan corrects himself.
The clipped video is viral with a caption taking a dig at Chouhan for his inappropriate behavior towards a teacher.
Narednra Saluja, media coordinator for former MP Chief Minister Kamal Nath,tweeted the video with the caption, Mamaji what did you say among the teachers (Original text in Hindi: मामाजी शिक्षकों के बीच आप यह क्या कह गये….?); Chouhan is often referred to as 'mamaji' by netizens.
A Facebook user also shared the video with the same caption.
__Fact Check
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BOOM was able to ascertain that the video has been clipped. We observed the video carefully and in the last few seconds of the clipped version, Chouhan corrects himself by saying, "On his head we..." (sic.)
We then looked up for the video with related keywords and found a larger version from OTV's YouTube channel. The viral clipped version is present in this video from the beginning till the 23 second mark time stamp. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan quickly corrects himself after the slip of tongue. Chouhan says, "Always, we always kept our head on his feet to seek his blessings."
Upon further searching, BOOM found a video of the same event from the official Twitter handle of Shivraj Singh Chouhan's office.
In the 1 hour 27 minutes long video, we can hear the part of the viral video at 41 minutes 14 seconds time stamp. Chouhan's remarks implied, that 'we have always kept our heads on his (teacher's) feet to seek his blessings.'
Chouhan was addressing the teachers of Madhya Pradesh in the 'Training Program of Newly Appointed Teachers (नवनियुक्त शिक्षकों का प्रशिक्षण कार्यक्रम)' organized on September 4 2022 in Bhopal.
