Former Member of parliament and Chief Editor of the Urdu daily Nai Duniya Shahid Siddiqui is facing criticism over claims he made about RSS-run schools in a podcast on his YouTube channel, I Witness with Shahid. A clip from the podcast has gone viral on social media, with Siddiqui making serious allegations about children being brought from the Northeast and allegedly trained to develop hatred against minorities.
In the viral clip, Siddiqui claimed that RSS-linked people were bringing girls from the Northeast, keeping them at different places and training them. He further alleged that children were being taught to hate minorities, including Christians and Muslims. He also claimed that around 10 lakh children had been taken over the past 10 years.
Siddiqui further claimed that parents were allegedly told that their children were being taken away for education and to help them get jobs, while they were not being given the “full picture”. He also suggested that the children were being taken with their parents’ permission but that the parents were allegedly not properly informed about what would happen to them.
RSS ideologue Ratan Sharda has criticised Siddiqui’s claims and questioned the basis of the allegations. Sharda has been vocal about misinformation and claims concerning the RSS and its activities.
This is disgusting vile propaganda. Images are disturbing & totally misleading. RSS allied organisations run most transperant schools and hostels. They never convert. North East hostels have hundreds of Christian children. No allurements are ever offered. Is this to equate them… https://t.co/5jD1bjyp3X
— Ratan Sharda 🇮🇳 रतन शारदा (@RatanSharda55) August 9, 2026
Controversial past of Shahid Siddiqui
Siddiqui, who has changed political affiliations several times, has also faced criticism over some of his previous social media posts and public statements.
In 2021, a video of Siddiqui surfaced on social media in which he claimed that there was not a single madrasa in Saharanpur or Muzaffarnagar where he had not contributed money. He was heard saying, “There is not even a single madarsa in Saharanpur and even here in Muzaffarnagar where I have not contributed.” He also claimed to have given crores of rupees to such institutions.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Siddiqui publicly thanked Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi for arranging Remdesivir for him after he sought help on social media. He also revealed that she had not wanted him to thank her publicly. The episode drew criticism because of the shortage of the drug and concerns over its hoarding.
In May 2020, Siddiqui also shared a video showing a mother and child travelling between compartments of a moving train and used it to criticise the government’s handling of migrant workers. He wrote, “Look at this mother travelling on a goods train with a child.” The video was later found to be from Bangladesh and dated back to 2016, rather than being from India’s migrant crisis.
Shahid Siddiqui’s political turnarounds
Siddiqui has had a long and frequently changing political career. He began with the Congress and became head of its minority cell in 1997. He joined the Samajwadi Party in 2002 and served as a Rajya Sabha member from the party until 2008.
He later joined the Bahujan Samaj Party and was expelled after publicly criticising Mayawati. He subsequently joined the Rashtriya Lok Dal in 2010 but left after the party entered into an alliance with the Congress ahead of the 2012 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. He later returned to the Samajwadi Party.
The SP subsequently expelled him in 2012 after he interviewed Narendra Modi, who was then Gujarat Chief Minister. Siddiqui later extended support to the Aam Aadmi Party during the 2019 Delhi elections, while maintaining that he had not formally joined the party.
His repeated political shifts, along with controversies surrounding some of his public statements and social media posts, have made Siddiqui a frequent subject of political debate.
