Himanta Sarma's Viral Before-After Assam Roads Video Fact-Checked

During the election season, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma has been sharing posts highlighting the developmental achievements of the BJP government on social media.

On April 25, he took his X handle to share a 27-second video supposedly to show the contrasting visuals of development during the BJP rule and poor infrastructure from his predecessor's time. The viral clip in the initial few seconds shows cars on potholes-ridden roads. The caption of this part of the video reads, "Assam roads then". The other portion of the video clip shows swanky roads, highways and bridges with the caption " Assam roads now". Posting the video, the Chief Minister wrote, "Assam's roads - Before and after Modi Government".

Fact Check

At first, we found that in the reply section of Himanta Biswa Sharma's post, some users have claimed that the road shown in the viral video is not from the pre-BJP era.

Following these suspicions, Newschecker tried to search for the date of the registration of those cars seen in the first part of the video. After investigation, it was found that some portions of Himanta Biswa Sarma's viral video were altered, resulting in a mirrored reflection of the car number plates.

The first vehicle under investigation, an orange car, bore the licence plate number 'AS01DT6808'. The registration date of the car seen in the video is August 2, 2018.

The licence plate numbers of the second and the third cars are 'AS01JC4711' and "AS01EP3464". Registration dates are respectively February 14, 2018 and December 1, 2020.

At the five-second mark of the video, a Hyundai Grand i10 Nios car is clearly visible. Notably, this model was initially introduced in the Indian market in 2019.

The BJP got its first government in Assam headed by Sarbananda Sonowal in 2016.

Conclusion

The portion of the viral video that shows poor road conditions is from the BJP regime in Assam.

Result: Partly False

(This story was originally published by Newschecker, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective.)