The Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal tweeted yesterday “Hans Raj Hans is ineligible to fight from a reserved seat. He will finally be declared ineligible. Voters from North West Delhi shud not waste their votes on him.” He shared the tweet of Rajendra Pal Gautam, stating the details of the same.

The tweet said that Hans Raj (singer turned politician) had converted to Islam in the year 2014, and now is contesting the North West Delhi elections from the reserved category, which is only applicable for the scheduled caste candidates.

This row was also joined by the RTI activist Amit Mishra who shared the news along with an interview of Rajendra Pal opposing Hans Raj for contesting elections on the basis of wrong information. 

Here is the video uploaded by Mitalee Rishi which was retweeted by Amit Mishra.

ABP news published a story after the claim was made by AAP. Their tweet reads: "Hans Raj Hans accepted Islam in 2014, ineligible to contest from reserved North West Delhi seat, claims AAP".

Old Rumour

Although many videos claiming the same were shared and posted by a lot of people, it turns out that this is not the first time this issue has come up. In the year 2014, a Pakistani news portal spread the news of the conversion of Hans Raj, there were many questions raised back then as well.

The story was picked by Caravan Daily as well. Citing a local media in Lahore, Caravan reported that Hans Raj Hans who was on a peace mission to Pakistan in 2014 said his name would be Mohammad Yousuf for now but he cleared that he will maintain his name ‘Hans Raj Hans’ for the singing industry.

The News of Hansraj's conversion denied by his family

Hans Raj's son, Yuvraj Hans, heard about it at a music launch, he reacted saying that he was shocked and had no idea about this statement made by others. In an interview, he said "Our family was completely disturbed after we came to know of the report by online news Pakistani portal and a TV channel that my father had converted his religion in Lahore. I was shooting at that time. I called up my father and he, too, was stunned at the news. We did not know how the footage got spread and who is behind this." 

After checking the details of this matter, it turns out that this assertion was debunked way back in the year 2014 by Hans Raj's son himself and there is no legitimacy in these claims. In conclusion, Hans Raj Hans did not convert into Islam and is eligible to contest the elections from the North West Delhi constituency legally.

It is the year 2019, and looks like the politicians of our country can not only go to any limits but also can they go back in time to bring up the issues to make sure that their vote banks remain secured. To make people aware is definitely not the wrong thing to do, but public figures like these should no doubt, double check the information that they are giving away to the masses.

Truth About the video shared by Mitalee Rishi

The video shared by Mitalee Rishi, in no way is proof that Hans Raj is Muslim or has converted to Islam. The original video was uploaded a year ago on youtube by “World Islamic Network” on the occasion of Dr Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri’s (Pakistani Politician) birthday. Nowhere in the video is Hans Raj seen making statements about his religious conversion. The sharing of this year old video only adds up to the existing rumours.

The video shared by Mitalee Rishi is just a cropped version of the above video.