Did BJP leader Naveen Patra’s helicopter run out of petrol during the Bengal Election campaign?

Due to the upcoming assembly elections in West Bengal, a lot of choppers with political party leaders can be spotted in the state. Leaders are visiting the state for the assembly election campaign. Amidst this a video is going viral on social media platforms, in which we can see some people trying to push a helicopter with their hands. The video is being circulated claiming that BJP leader Naveen Patra, who went to campaign in West Bengal, had to push his helicopter with his hands as the chopper ran out of petrol.

The caption of the post states “The oil of the helicopter of BJP minister Naveen Patra, who went to campaign from the helicopter in West Bengal, has run out. It is possible if Modi is there.”

Facebook Post | Archive link

Fact Check-

We started our investigation by using InVid-We Verify tool to break the video into small keyframes and then conducted a reverse image search on the same. The results led us to a tweet in which the same video was published on January 22 of this year. The tweet’s headline reads, “The engine of a passenger helicopter in Mizoram could not start at high altitude, so they had to push start.”

Archive link

After this, we searched the comments section of the above tweet and found that a user has made a post mentioning that the helicopter is a Pawan Hans AS365 Dauphin helicopter.

Tweet Link  | Archive Link

Next, Fact Crescendo contacted Captain Jalal of Pawan Hans in Aizawl, Mizoram to get more  information about the video and claim that was going viral. He told us that, “The news that is going viral is completely false. VT-ELT is appointed by the Government of Mizoram and is not on any election duty. The Aizawl city has a Mullipui helipad, where all helicopters are boarded and de-boarded, and after the final order of the day, the helicopter is pushed into the hangar, the way it is shown in the video. Due to lack of tractor facilities here, people push the helicopter from the front with towbar. This is a very common scene on a daily basis. Also, none of the helicopters from Mizoram are on duty for Bengal election campaign.”

Who is BJP leader Naveen Patra? 

When we did a keyword search on Google, we could not find any leader named Naveen Patra in BJP. After this, we tried to find Naveen Patra on MyNeta.info, where we could not find any leader with this name. This made is clear that there is no political leader from BJP by the name of Naveen Patra.

Conclusion- Fact Crescendo found the viral post on social media to be False. The video going viral is not from the assembly election campaign in Bengal but it is from Mizoram. Also, there is no BJP leader by the name Naveen Patra. The video has no relation with the ongoing assembly election campaign in West Bengal.