His words were real. But the context had been stripped away.
As Jharkhand's assembly elections unfolded in November 2024, a six-year-old video of Babulal Marandi denouncing Prime Minister Modi circulated as though it were a fresh revelation of internal BJP dissent. The footage was real, the words were genuine, but the man speaking them was leading a rival party at the time — a distinction that vanished entirely in the viral sharing. In the long arc of democratic life, this episode reminds us that truth stripped of its context can become a vehicle for its opposite.
- A video of Jharkhand's BJP chief harshly condemning his own party's prime minister spread rapidly during a live election, carrying the weight of a political bombshell.
- Prominent voices including a Supreme Court advocate and a national political activist amplified the footage across platforms, deepening its apparent credibility and reach.
- Fact-checkers traced the clip through reverse image searches and regional archives, locating its true origin in December 2018 — when Marandi led a rival party, not the BJP.
- Marandi had spent fourteen years outside the BJP before merging his independent party back in 2020 and ascending to state party chief by 2023, context entirely absent from viral posts.
- The debunking, published as part of a collaborative fact-checking initiative, restored the timeline — but the episode exposed how cleanly decontextualized truth can function as misinformation.
In the middle of Jharkhand's November 2024 assembly elections, a video began spreading across social media showing Babulal Marandi — currently the BJP's state party chief — delivering a fierce condemnation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the footage, Marandi accused Modi of broken promises, religious divisiveness, and warned that India risked communal catastrophe under his continued leadership. The timing appeared devastating: the state's first voting phase had just closed with strong turnout, and results were days away.
The video was shared by high-profile figures including advocate Prashant Bhushan and activist Yogendra Yadav, lending it further weight. To anyone following the contest between the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the BJP, it looked like a window into the state chief's private convictions about his own national leader.
But fact-checkers at BOOM dismantled that reading. Through reverse image searches and regional media archives, they established that the footage dated to December 14, 2018 — nearly six years earlier. At that moment, Marandi was not a BJP member at all. He had broken from the party in 2006 to found the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, and the 2018 video captured him criticizing the central government over the Rafale defense deal from that independent platform.
Marandi's political arc is what made the deception possible. Jharkhand's first chief minister after the state's formation in 2000, he spent fourteen years outside the BJP before merging his party back into it in 2020. By July 2023, he had become the state unit's head — the very role he occupied when his old words were stripped of their context and recirculated as current dissent.
The episode captures something durable about modern elections: genuine statements, detached from the circumstances that gave them meaning, can be made to say something they never meant. The criticism was real. The political alignment that framed it had simply ceased to exist. Republished through the Shakti Collective fact-checking initiative, the correction arrived — but the vulnerability it exposed, of voters encountering true words in false contexts, remained.
A video circulating across social media in mid-November showed Babulal Marandi, now the chief of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Jharkhand unit, delivering a sharp critique of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the footage, Marandi accused Modi of breaking promises made in 2014, of stoking religious division between Hindus and Muslims, and of weaponizing divisive issues like cow protection and religious conversion. He warned that if Modi remained prime minister, India risked descending into communal violence and becoming another Pakistan. The video appeared during a critical moment: Jharkhand's assembly elections were underway, with the first phase having drawn 64.86 percent voter turnout on November 13, and the second phase still in progress as the state prepared to announce results on November 23.
The timing seemed damaging. Here was the state BJP chief, on camera, denouncing the party's national leader in the harshest terms. The video was shared by prominent figures including Supreme Court advocate Prashant Bhushan and political activist Yogendra Yadav, amplifying its reach across X and other platforms. For those following the election—a contest between the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the BJP as the main opposition—the footage appeared to be a bombshell of internal dissent, a window into the state party chief's true feelings about his own party's leader.
But the video was not what it seemed. Fact-checkers at BOOM, working through reverse image searches and local media archives, traced the footage back to December 2018—nearly six years before the 2024 election cycle. At that time, Marandi was not a member of the BJP at all. He was leading his own political party, the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha, which he had founded in 2006 after resigning from the BJP. A local news outlet, Taaza Jharkhand, had originally published the video on December 14, 2018, in a report about Marandi's comments on the Rafale defense deal and his criticism of the central government's handling of it.
Marandi's political journey explains the confusion. He had been Jharkhand's first chief minister when the state was carved from Bihar in 2000, serving under the BJP banner. But in 2006, he broke with the party and established the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha as his own vehicle. For fourteen years, he operated as an independent political force. Then, in 2020, he merged the JVM back into the BJP. By July 2023, he had risen to become the head of the state party unit—the very position he held when this old video began circulating during the 2024 elections.
The resurfacing of the 2018 footage illustrates a familiar pattern in modern elections: decontextualized content weaponized for immediate political effect. The video's substance—Marandi's criticism of Modi—was genuine. His words were real. But the context had been stripped away. Viewers seeing it shared during the November 2024 election had no way of knowing it came from a moment when Marandi led a rival party, not from within the BJP itself. The fact that he had since merged his party into the BJP and risen to lead its state operations was absent from the viral posts. What remained was the raw accusation, floating free from the circumstances that gave it meaning.
The debunking by BOOM, republished by India TV as part of the Shakti Collective fact-checking initiative, restored that context. The video was old. Marandi was not a BJP member when he made those statements. The criticism, however pointed, belonged to a different political era and a different political alignment. Yet the episode underscores how easily election cycles can resurrect old material and reshape it into something it was not—a warning about the vulnerability of voters to misinformation, even when the underlying facts are true.
Citações Notáveis
The promises that Modi ji made in 2014 remain unfulfilled. Now they are making society fight along religious lines between Hindus and Muslims.— Babulal Marandi, in December 2018 video
If Modi ji continues as prime minister, the situation in India could worsen over the next five years, leading to increased communal riots and halting the nation's progress.— Babulal Marandi, in December 2018 video
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
So the video itself—the words Marandi spoke—those were real?
Completely real. He said exactly what the video shows. The problem isn't that it's fabricated. It's that it's being presented as current when it's six years old.
And at the time he said it, he wasn't even in the BJP?
Right. He was leading his own party, the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha. He'd left the BJP in 2006 specifically to start it. So when he criticized Modi in 2018, he was doing it as a rival, not as someone within the party.
When did he rejoin the BJP?
2020. And then he climbed pretty quickly—by July 2023 he was the state party chief. So now you have this situation where his old words as an opponent are being circulated while he's in a position of leadership within the very party he was attacking.
Who was sharing it during the election?
High-profile figures. A Supreme Court advocate, a political activist. People with large platforms. They posted it without the date context, which made it look current.
How did fact-checkers figure out when it was actually from?
Reverse image search on the video frames, then they found the original post from a local news outlet in December 2018. Once you have the date, the whole picture changes.
Does it matter that his criticisms were about real issues—broken promises, communal division?
The substance of his critique doesn't become false just because it's old. But the context matters enormously. Voters need to know he was speaking as a political opponent at the time, not as someone inside the party. Without that, you're being misled about what the video means.