Lighthouse Journalism found two videos being widely shared on social media platforms. One video featured Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu C. Joseph Vijay travelling in a car. It was claimed that the video shows his arrival at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to support the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) protest. Another video featured NASA Astronaut Sunita Williams, claiming she too arrived at Jantar Mantar to support the protest
During the investigation we found that both the videos are old and not related to the CJP protest. The viral claims are misleading.
Claim:
1. Instagram user The Hindustan Files shared the viral video featuring Tamil Nadu CM with misleading claim on Instagram.
Other users also shared the viral video with same claim.
2. YouTube channel Akanccha mini vlog shared video featuring Sunita Williams. The video had 1.5 million views
Other users are also sharing the video with similar claim.
Investigation:
1. We started the investigation by first verifying the video featuring Tamil Nadu CM C. Joseph Vijay, claiming to be at Jantar Mantar, supporting the CJP protest. We extracted the keyframes from the viral video and ran a reverse image search on the keyframes.
We found the exact same video posted by an Instagram user Harshitha Karthik on May 4.
On May 4, 2026, the official verdict and vote counts for the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections were declared. Actor-turned-politician C. Joseph Vijay’s party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), emerged as the single-largest party.
We also found similar videos where Tamil Nadu SM was on his way to Loyola College in Chennai to collect his victory certificate.
2. We then debunked the video featuring astronaut Sunita Williams.
We started the investigation by running a reverse image search on the keyframes obtained from the video.
We found the video posted by YouTube channel Nomad Ambience five months ago.
We also found the same video uploaded on Instagram on January 22.
One of the hashtags used by “klf”
Astronaut Sunita Williams inaugurated Kerala Literature Festival on 22nd January.
We also noticed that shoulder patches had the logo of Kerala Police in the viral video where cops were seen escorting the astronaut in the video.
Conclusion: Tamil Nadu C. Joseph Vijay and Astronaut Sunita Williams did not visit Jantar Mantar to support the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) protest. The viral videos are old and are being shared with misleading claim.
