Bengaluru, April 20: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday filed his nomination to contest the ensuing state Legislative Assembly elections from Chamundeshwari constituency in Mysuru, an official said.
"Siddaramaiah, along with his son Yathindra, visited the Chamundeshwari temple atop Chamundi Hills in Mysuru to pray to goddess Durga before filing his nomination," an official from the Chief Minister's Office told here.
The 69-year-old veteran leader contested from Chamundeshwari seat seven times since 1983 and won five times. He later shifted his constituency to Varuna in Mysuru district, from where he was elected twice since 2008, including the last assembly polls in 2013.
Siddaramaiah has paved way for his son, Yathindra, to contest the May 12 assembly elections from his home constituency Varuna. Yathindra, who will be contesting the state elections for the first time, also filed his nomination papers on Friday.
Siddaramaiah switched over to the Congress from the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) in August 2006 following differences with its supremo and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda and his second son and former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.
He is also only second lawmaker in the southern state to complete the five-year term as Chief Minister in 40 years after Devaraj Urs did from 1972-78, as about 10 chief ministers could not compete their full term in between for various reasons.
Meanwhile, JD-S state president Kumaraswamy filed his nomination for the state polls from both Channapatna and Ramanagara assembly segments in Ramanagara district, about 50km southwest from here.
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Fact Check: viral claim of Bashar al-Assad visit to his aunt’s home in Moscow is false
Claim: The video shows Bashar al-Assad visiting his aunt’s home in Moscow in 2024.
Fact: The claim is false. The video is from 2017 and shows Assad visiting wounded soldiers.
Hyderabad: On December 20, 2024, thousands of Syrians gathered in Damascus’s Umayyad Square, celebrating the establishment of a new government with fireworks and displays of a new flag. The event followed the return of many Syrians to the country after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Amid these celebrations, a video went viral, claiming to show Assad visiting his aunt’s home in Moscow. The video, shared by an X user, was accompanied by the caption: “Bashar al-Assad visits his aunt in her humble home in Moscow, the Republic of Russia, where he took refuge” (translated from Arabic). (Archive)
The 1:30-minute video shows Assad, along with his family, visiting a house and being warmly received by a lady and others in the household.
Similar claims can be seen here and here. (Archive 1, Archive 2)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is not recent nor show Assad visiting his aunt.
A reverse image search led us to the same footage posted on YouTube by the Syrian Presidency channel on September 16, 2018, under the title ‘The hero, Ayham Mahmoud Donia, after his injury, received President al-Assad and his family himself, walking on his feet’.
This hinted that the video is old and unrelated to recent events.
Further, a keyword search led to a report from Al Yawm Al Saabie on June 26, 2017, which described Assad and his family visiting wounded soldiers in the Hama countryside.
The report included the same video, with the description stating that the woman in the footage is the mother of a wounded Syrian soldier.
The report explained that one of the soldiers, Ayham Mahmoud Donia, had been severely injured but defied expectations by walking again to greet Assad. This visit was part of the regime’s ‘Wounded of the Nation Program,’ aimed at supporting soldiers wounded in the conflict.
Therefore, the claim that the video shows Assad visiting his aunt in Moscow is false. The footage is from a 2017 visit where Assad met injured soldiers in Syria.
(This story was originally published by newsmeter, and republished by english.varthabharati.in as part of the Shakti Collective)
