Fact Check: This video is not Chandrababu Naidu rally, the funeral procession of Siddeshwar Swami

Claim: The large crowd that attended TDP leader Chandrababu Naidu's rally in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh, can be seen in this video.

In preparation for the state's Assembly elections in 2024, N Chandrababu Naidu, the former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and president of the Telugu Desam Party, has been holding a series of political rallies all over the state. After two stampedes during Naidu's roadshows that resulted in the deaths of 11 people, the rallies gained national attention.

After Andhra Pradesh police prevented the TDP chief from participating in a road show in Kuppam, which is Naidu's home district and is located in the Chittoor district, on January 4, there was a lot of tension there. Naida's campaign vehicle was reportedly seized by police after they reportedly used mild lathi-charge. He then went back to walking the roadshow.

Following this, a number of individuals have posted a video on social media of a large rally, claiming that it was from Naidu's Kuppam roadshow. One of these videos read, "Grand welcome to #NaraChandrababuNaidu kuppam people." A similar post's archived versions are available here.

However, we discovered that the video is from Siddeshwar Swami's funeral procession, which was held at Sri Jnanayogashrama in Karnataka. It has nothing to do with Naidu's political gathering.

On social media, a few people pointed out that the video was from the antim yatra, or funeral procession, of Siddeshwar Swami. According to reports in the media, Siddeshwar Swami, a well-known Lingayat seer from Jnanayogashrama, passed away on January 3 in the Karnataka district of Vijayapura.

The same video was tweeted by a person on January 4. As per this tweet, the video was from Siddeshwar Swami’s funeral procession.

After that, we shared the video with Asif Hussain, the Vijayapura district reporter for the Kannada newspaper Vartha Bharati. We were informed by the journalist that the video is from Vijayapura's Mahatma Gandhi Circle.

“Lakhs of people had gathered to pay their respect to the seer,” Hussain stated to AFWA. The final rites were carried out when his body was carried in a procession from the Sainik School grounds to Jnanayogashrama. The Mahatma Gandhi Circle, depicted in the viral video, was passed by the procession.

Fact: This video was taken during the funeral procession of Siddeshwar Swami, the Jnanayogashrama seer who passed away on January 3, 2023, in the Vijayapura district of Karnataka.