Amid the ongoing political row following comedian Kunal Kamra's recent stand-up performance, two videos featuring Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam have gone viral.
In one video, Nirupam critiques the term "traitor" used during Kamra's show. Whereas in the second video, he says that the son of Maharashtra's Chief Minister Eknath Shinde should have the label "traitor" written on his forehead.
However, BOOM found that the viral video is incomplete. The video, which claims Nirupam called Shinde a traitor, is actually a response to a statement made by Shiv Sena UBT leader Priyanka Chaturvedi during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Nirupam joined the Shinde-led Shiv Sena on 3 May 2024 following his expulsion from the Congress party.
Fact-check
In the first video, Nirupam is criticising the word traitor.
Upon verifying the viral claim, we conducted a reverse image search on key frames from the video of Nirupam speaking in Marathi. Our search led us to the full video, which was uploaded on ABP Majha’s YouTube channel on March 24, 2025. In the video, Nirupam is seen reacting to Kunal Kamra’s parody song, which Kamra performed during his show at the Habitat Comedy Club in Mumbai’s Khar area on March 23, 2025.
In the video, Nirupam strongly responds to Kamra’s Marathi song, in which Kamra refers to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Shinde as a traitor. Nirupam accuses Kamra of targeting NDA leaders after accepting a contract from Shiv Sena UBT and the Congress party. At the 2:54-minute mark, Nirupam states, "There is satire on political people (leaders), we also tolerate it, but you cannot call anyone a traitor." This portion of the video went viral.
The second video, which claims Nirupam called Shinde a traitor, is cropped.
While verifying this, we searched the caption of the viral claim on X and found a full-frame video.
A reverse image search of the key frames led us to the complete video, uploaded on ANI’s X handle on May 10, 2024. Upon reviewing the video, we found that a cropped version of Nirupam’s statement from May 10, 2024, during the Lok Sabha elections is being shared with a misleading claim.
In the original video, Nirupam is targeting Shiv Sena UBT leader Priyanka Chaturvedi. He says, “The woman MP of Shiv Sena UBT has said that it should be written on the forehead of the son of the honorable Chief Minister Eknath Shinde that my father is a traitor. Further, while answering her, he says, in fact, the betrayal has been done by (Shiv Sena) UBT, Uddhav Thackeray ji, they have betrayed the voter, betrayed the BJP, betrayed Balasaheb Thackeray..."
We found that Nirupam was not calling Shinde a traitor, he was reacting to the comment made by Chaturvedi on Shinde.
According to a report by The Hindu, dated May 10, 2024 , during the campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Chaturvedi had targeted at Shinde and his son Shrikant Shinde. At an election rally in the Mumbai North-East Lok Sabha constituency, she said, "It is written on Shrikant Shinde's forehead, Mera baap gadadar hai” (My father is a traitor).