The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has lodged a formal complaint regarding a fake video that went viral concerning its candidate Sunil Soni in the Raipur South Assembly by-election. Civil Lines Police registered a case under Section 336 (4) of BNS. A BJP delegation led by chief spokesperson and MLA Shivratan Sharma, along with other prominent leaders including MLA Ajay Chandrakar and Dharam Lal Kaushik, filed an FIR at the Civil Lines police station on Monday. In their complaint, the BJP delegation stated that the video was released by Indian National Congress media chief Sushil Anand Shukla within the Congress’ authorised media group. The video allegedly shows Sunil Kumar Soni embracing an elderly Muslim man and kissing his cheek, with misleading comments made about the candidate. According to the BJP, the edited video was disseminated to confuse voters in Raipur South and tarnish the image of their candidate. The delegation asserted that such actions aim to negatively impact the character of Sunil Kumar Soni and fall under criminal activity as per the IT Act.

 

The complaint requests that a first information report (FIR) be filed against Shukla and that immediate legal action be taken. Speaking to journalists, Shivratan Sharma and Ajay Chandrakar claimed that the Congress had attempted a similar tactic a year ago in Baijnath Para. They accused the Congress party of persistently trying to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere of Chhattisgarh and expressed confidence that the voters of Raipur South would not allow such actions to succeed. Other BJP leaders, including Naresh Gupta, Brijesh Pandey, Anurag Agarwal, and Mrityunjay Dubey, were also involved in complaining. The gathering included former Assembly Speaker Dharamlal Kaushik, Subhash Tiwari, Mohan Anty, State Minister Kishore Mahanand, State Office Incharge Naresh Chandra Gupta, State Media Co-In-charge Anurag Aggarwal, and various BJP officials and supporters, who stood in solidarity during this significant action.