Fact Check: Viral video shows TDP followers protesting over the selection of the Anantapur MLA urban candidate

Claim: Visuals showing people of Andhra Pradesh burning a portrait of TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu for supporting Narendra Modi to form the government.

Fact: This viral video shows visuals of TDP followers protesting over the selection of the Anantapur Urban MLA candidate in March 2024. The TDP announced Daggubati Venkateswara Prasad as the MLA candidate for Anantapur Urban. Prabhakar Chaudhary, who had been hoping for the MLA ticket for many years, was unhappy with this decision. His followers expressed their anger by attacking the TDP Anantapur Urban office, destroying furniture, and burning banners and photos of Chandrababu Naidu. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.

The results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were announced on 04 June 2024. The BJP managed to win only 240 seats, falling short of a majority on its own, thus making it dependent on alliance partners to secure the 272 seats required to form the government. On 05 June 2024, TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu clarified that they intend to remain with the NDA by attending the NDA meeting and providing written support to the NDA. In this context, a video showing a few people hitting the portrait of Chandrababu Naidu with footwear and throwing it into the fire is being widely circulated across social media platforms with the claim that people of Andhra Pradesh are upset with Chandrababu’s decision to support Narendra Modi and are burning photos of Chandrababu Naidu. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.

There are no credible reports about people of Andhra Pradesh protesting against TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu for supporting Narendra Modi to form the government.

To gather more information about this viral video, we conducted a Google reverse image search using key frames from the video. This search led us to a news report video featuring similar visuals, uploaded on 30 March 2024, on the official YouTube channel of the Telugu news channel NTV with the title: “Anantapur TDP Leaders Protest Over Final List.” According to this media report, the TDP announced Daggubati Venkateswara Prasad as the MLA candidate for Anantapur Urban. Prabhakar Chaudhary, who had been hoping for the MLA ticket for many years was not able to accept this decision. Prabhakar Chaudhary’s followers expressed their anger by attacking the TDP Anantapur Urban office, destroying furniture and windows, and burning banners and photos of Chandrababu Naidu.

Upon comparing the viral video with the news video, it becomes evident that the visuals in the viral video show Anantapur TDP leaders protesting against the selection of the MLA candidate for the Anantapur Urban constituency in March 2024, before the 2024 Andhra Pradesh Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Below is a comparison of the viral video with the news video.