On October 6, Congress leader Nagma (Tamil actor Suriya’s sister-in-law) posted a video of a woman criticizing Prime Minsiter Narendra Modi and the BJP government, with the caption claiming that the woman in the video was former Prime Minsiter Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece.
The woman in the video can be seen ranting about PM Modi saying “we regret electing the BJP”.
Nagma tweeted this video with the caption in Hinglish that states “Atal Ji’s niece stated that this conspiracy of dividing the country is an agenda of the RSS and the BJP. They are determined to destroy the unity and integrity of the country with ‘Godi’ media. The youth is unemployed, farmers are destroyed and the government is unable to protect women”.
However, the woman in the video is not Vajpayee’s niece. She is ‘social activist’ Atiya Alvi who is a vocal critic of the BJP. Alvi regularly posts sarcastic videos criticizing the BJP and Prime Minister Modi. In mid January this year, Alvi was protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, at Jantar Mantar in Delhi from where the clip of an interview with a private news channel went viral with the false claim.
Apparently, this claim of the woman being Vajpayee’s niece had been busted before. She had rubbished the viral claims. “I was protesting at Mandi house area from where this video is viral,” she said at the time.
However, Congress leader Nagma peddling it again has once again spread misinformation.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s niece is Karuna Shukla who is 69 years old, left the Bhartiya Janata Party in 2014 and joined the Congress. This is Karuna Shukla.
Despite the fact check, Nagma has not taken down the video until the time of publishing this article.