A post accompanying a video of a woman criticizing the BJP government on a news channel is widely circulating across social media platforms (here, here, and here), claiming that the woman featured is the niece of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece criticizing the BJP government.
Fact: The woman featured in this video criticizing the BJP government is Atiya Alvi, a social activist. Atiya Alvi has confirmed that it is indeed her in the video and clarified that she is not former PM Vajpayee’s niece. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
After carefully observing the viral video, we noticed that the video mentioned its source as ‘HNP News’. Taking a cue from this, we conducted a relevant keyword search to learn more about it. This search led us to an extended version of the viral video uploaded on YouTube by ‘HNP News’ on 03 January 2020. The video identifies the woman in the footage as social worker Atiya Alvi. According to the video description, Atiya Alvi was speaking to HNP News at a protest held in Jantar Mantar, Delhi, against the CAA and NRC.
During this search, we also found that this video went viral in the year 2020 with the same claim (here, here, & here). Several fact-checking organizations have contacted Atiya Alvi regarding this viral video clip. In conversations with them, she confirmed that it was indeed her in the video and clarified that she’s not Vajpayee’s niece (here and here).
Among Vajpayee’s relatives, notable individuals associated with politics include his niece, Karuna Shukla, who was a former MP from Chhattisgarh, and his nephew, Anoop Mishra, who is a former BJP MLA in the Madhya Pradesh assembly.
According to reports (here and here), Karuna Shukla ended her 32-year-long association with the BJP and joined the Congress in 2014. Karuna Shukla died in 2021 due to COVID-19.
To sum up, the woman featured in this video criticizing the BJP government is not former PM Vajpayee’s niece; she is Atiya Alvi, a social activist.
This story was originally published by Factly and republished by OrissaPOST as part of the Shakti Collective.