Two days after Wajib Ali, the Congress candidate for the Nagar Assembly constituency, filed his nomination papers on November 6, a video went viral on social media, purportedly showing people in a crowd accompanying him raising the “Pakistan Zindabad” slogan. Police investigations found that the video was doctored and a 32-year-old man who posted the video on YouTube was arrested. But that has not stopped the falsehood from gaining a life of its own.
In Nagar, Hindu voters are using the video to rail against the “anti-Hindu” and “pro-Muslim” stance of the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government. As the polling date nears, the communal schism is taking centre stage in Bharatpur district, which is a Congress stronghold. In the 2018 election, the Congress won four out of the seven seats in the district and two Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs also joined the party, supporting Mr. Gehlot, during former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot’s 2020 revolt.
