A quote attributed to Bharatiya Janta Party's candidate from Bhopal, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, wherein she allegedly said that late Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar died of cancer because he allowed beef to be consumed in the state, is fake.
Thakur has not made any such statement on Parrikar who died on March 17, 2019 at the age of 63 after battling pancreatic cancer.
The origin of the claim appears to be IndiaScoops.com, a dubious website. The article published on April 26, 2019 also claimed that Thakur told a group of followers in Sehore, Madhya Pradesh that the BJP was planning to ban the sale of beef in the North East, Goa and in a few southern states where it is still allowed.
Following several fact-checks IndiaScoops defended its article in an Editor's Note and said Thakur made the controversial remarks to a group of followers and it was possible that no media persons were present at that time.
"The comments regarding Parrikar were made in front of very few people, which came to the knowledge of our stringer in Madhya Pradesh a day later, who reported this news to our news desk in Mumbai which filed this story ." IndiaScoops wrote.
The fake quote has gone viral from several Twitter handles and Facebook pages.
Viral on Facebook Fact Check BOOM searched for news reports on any such statement made by Thakur but found none. We also tried to reach out to Pragya Singh Thakur.
Umesh Shrivastav, an aide of Thakur, told us the statement was absolutely false and such disinformation was being spread with an intent to malign her image.
"There is no truth in this statement. This is all being done at the behest of Congress to malign didi's image", Shrivastav told BOOM.
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur is an accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast in Maharasthtra. She was arrested in 2008 and granted bail by the Bombay High Court in 2017.
She recently courted controversy after making an off colour remark about Hemant Karkare, the Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) chief who died fighting terrorists during the 26/11 attack in Mumbai in 2008. She also raised eyebrows when she said regular consumption of 'gau mutra' or cow urine had cured her of breast cancer.