Lighthouse Journalism came across a letter being shared in the name of BJP Tamil Nadu state president, K Annamalai. The text in the letter said, ‘Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan should be made the next chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in the last month of 2024. The next chief minister of Haryana in 2024 will be the current chief minister Yogi Adityanath.’ The letter was written on a letterhead and was signed by K Annamalai. During the investigation we found the letter to be fake.
Claim:
X user Akash Yadav shared the letter on his profile.
Check the archive version of the post.
Other users too are sharing the letter.
Investigation:
We started our investigation using reverse image search and we found that the social media handles of BJP Tamil Nadu and even that of BJP leader K Annamalai had shared the letterhead in the past.
We also noticed that the grammar of the text in the viral letter was incorrect.
Through reverse image search we found a similar looking letterhead.
The text on the letterhead was different but the rest of the part including the signature did look the same.
In the next step of investigation we connected with the personal secretary of K Annamalai. He informed us that the viral letter is fake.
Conclusion: Viral letter attributed to BJP Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai is fake. He did not issue a letter saying Shivraj Singh Chauhan to become CM of Uttar Pradesh and Yogi Adityanath to become CM of Haryana.
