New Delhi: Social media users have shared a video of Congress MP Rahul Gandhi purportedly asking people to vote for the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
In the viral clip, he also says that his party and the Opposition INDIA bloc are "trying to destroy democracy and the Constitution".
In the video, Mr Gandhi can be heard saying, "Namaskar, this is Rahul Gandhi. This election is to save democracy and its principles. On one side, the Congress party and the INDIA alliance are trying to destroy democracy and the Constitution. And on the other side, BJP and RSS are making efforts to protect the Constitution and democracy (translated from Hindi)."
He also says, "Congress party made 22-25 people as billionaires, while BJP party is trying to make crores of women and youth millionaires. Support BJP and RSS, protect the Constitution, and press (vote for) Narendra Modi's button." Archived versions of such posts can be viewed here and here.
Screenshots of the viral video circulating online are attached below.
However, the video is edited. The original clip shows Rahul Gandhi asking people to vote for the Congress party and not the BJP.
What are the facts?
Through a reverse image search, we found the original video shared by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on his social media accounts — on Instagram (archived here) and on X (formerly Twitter) (archived here) on April 25.
The caption of the Instagram and X post read, "In this election to protect the constitution and democracy, in this election to form the 'Government of Indians' by leaving behind 'Mitra Kaal (friendship era)', do your democratic duty. Stand with Congress. Press the hand button! Jai Hind (translated from Hindi).” The post is also pinned on his Instagram account.
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In this video, Mr Gandhi says,"Namaskar, this is Rahul Gandhi. This election is an election to save democracy and principles. On one side, BJP and RSS are trying to destroy democracy and the Constitution. And on the other side, the Congress party and INDIA alliance are making efforts to protect the Constitution and democracy."
We found that some words said in this video have been interchanged to further a false claim. For instance: Around the 0:07-0:13 timestamp, the words "BJP & RSS" and "Congress party & INDIA alliance" have been interchanged to make it appear that Mr Gandhi spoke against his party.
Similarly, the words Mr Gandhi voiced beginning the 0:37 mark, where he says, "Narendra Modi has made 22-25 people as billionaires, while the Congress party is trying to make crores of women and youth as millionaires," have been edited to make it appear as though Mr Gandhi said, "Congress party made 22-25 people as billionaires, while BJP is trying to make crores of women and youth as millionaires."
Words like 'BJP,' 'RSS,' 'Constitution,' and 'Narendra Modi' were selected and edited to make it appear as though Rahul Gandhi asked people to support the ruling BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The original video was also cited by a report published by The Economic Times on April 25. The financial daily said that Mr Gandhi released this video before the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections, appealing to people to vote for Congress. Mr Gandhi had also asked the voters to vote for the hand symbol, which is the election symbol of the Congress.
Mr Gandhi has spoken against the BJP, RSS, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on several occasions.
The verdict
Portions of a video released by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi have been manipulated to make it seem that he appealed to the public to vote for the BJP. Hence, we mark this claim as false.
(This story was originally published by Logically Facts, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective.)