Fish video, proof missing
A clip of fish being cooked near a Congress-linked welcome in the Ayodhya region turned into a BJP morality play. The evidence for “Ajay Rai ate fish” is still where it started: nowhere on record.
The circulated footage shows cooking; the missing link remains missing.
The sequence is simpler than the shouting. A video of fish being prepared at or near a venue linked to a welcome programme around UP Congress chief Ajay Rai’s Ayodhya-area visit circulated online. BJP leaders pounced; sermonising followed. The footage itself does not show Rai eating fish, ordering it, or even present at the time. That has not stopped the BJP from pretending it does. [India Today; Indian Express]
Yogi Adityanath went full theatre: Congress leaders, he said, prayed at Hanuman Garhi and then “enjoyed a fish feast.” He added the chameleon line for good measure. None of that came with evidence tying Rai to the meal. [India Today; Indian Express]
Rai’s reply was blunt: show a photo of me eating fish and I resign. He also said it was Ekadashi and he “did not even eat rice.” That is a checkable claim; the BJP-led chorus has yet to check anything in public. [India Today; NDTV]
The organiser, identified as Ram Nishad, said the Nishad community held a feast, the leaders were served vegetarian food, and they left before the fish was eaten. His words, his timeline — and he’s clear about the principle: “We are fishermen. We have committed no crime by eating fish.” [Indian Express]
Even the basics are fuzzy in the BJP telling. Reports differ on the exact spot — Gosaiganj or Tarun — and none of the material reviewed establishes who shot the clip, when, or whether the “Congress stage” in frame was at the same time as the cooking. Those gaps are not footnotes; they are the heart of the allegation. [India Today; NDTV; Indian Express]
So far, what is recorded is a community cooking video and a Congress-linked programme in the Ayodhya region on the same day. What is asserted by the BJP is that Ajay Rai and others “feasted on fish.” What is missing is the proof that turns one into the other. The BJP-led Centre loves a morality lecture; substantiating one appears to be a dietary restriction. [India Today; Indian Express]