Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
A video has recently gone viral, where you can see Congress leader Rahul Gandhi claiming that India’s population (abadi) is “140 crore rupees” during a public rally. The gaffe evoked reactions of ridicule across social media as users, verified handles among them, termed it a “new comedy” from Gandhi, who is in the second leg of his Bharat Jodo Yatra, which began from Kanyakumari on September 7, 2022, and entered Haryana’s Panipat district on January 5.
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here, here and here.
Fact check
Newschecker first did a keyword search for “Rahul Gandhi 140 crore”, which led us to multiple news reports of Rahul Gandhi’s public rally in Panipat during the second phase of the Haryana leg of the Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra. The reports can be seen here, here and here.
According to these reports, Gandhi took on the Centre, saying, “I have a question in my mind… even the country’s population is 140 crore… and only 100 richest people of the country have 50 per cent of the total wealth of the country… Do you see justice in it? This is the reality of Narendra Modi’s India.” There was no mention of him across these reports of counting the population in rupees, raising our doubts.
Taking this as a cue, we ran a keyword search for “Rahul Gandhi Panipat Bharat Jodo Yatra”, which led us to this Youtube video, dated January 6, 2023, titled Rahul Gandhi Full Speech|Panipat | Haryana | Bharat Jodo Yatra, and uploaded by the Indian National Congress.
At the 1:56 mark, you can hear Gandhi saying India’s population is 140 crore rupees, before quickly correcting it to 140 crore people, however, his correction has been omitted from the viral clip.
Conclusion
Newschecker learnt that a clipped video of Rahul Gandhi’s speech, where he is heard saying India’s population is 140 crore rupees, was being circulated on social media, leaving out his correction.
Result: Missing Context
Sources
Hindustan Times report, January 6, 2023
Youtube video, Indian National Congress, January 6, 2023
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
