BJP Rajya Sabha member Prakash Javadekar has tweeted an eight-month-old video of the Indian railway traffic service (ISRTS) and misled his 2.8 million followers. The video shared by Javadekar on October 20, shows a four-kilometre long rack train with four engines carrying coal. Amid the ongoing shortage of coal, his tweet portrays that the Modi government is supplying coal to power plants on a war footing basis.
Fact-check website Alt News found that IRTS Association had tweeted the video earlier on January 6, identifying the train as ‘Vasuki’. Vasuki completed the first run of 280 km between Korba to Bhilai, setting a new record for the Railways. The train had four coal-loaded rakes that distributed coal to different power plants. A longer version of the video was later tweeted on the same day by the railway ministry but this identified the train as ‘Super Sheshnag’.
The video tweeted by Prakash Javadekar is exactly the same as the January videos, and if one notices carefully, the time on the platform clock was 6:35 P.M. is also visible. His misleading tweet garnered around 1,000 likes and more than 17,000 retweets.
The Rajya Sabha member also tagged the Prime Minister of India in his misleading tweet. News 18 did a story based on Javdekar’s tweet. The Indian railways run a 4-km-long goods train with 4 engines to supply coal to power plants, the train is being run to deal with the shortage of coal in thermal power plants, the news portal reported.