A video of Congress leader and MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra protesting against the Waqf Amendment Act is viral across social media platforms.
BOOM found that the video is originally from a protest organised by the Congress party on August 5, 2022, against inflation and other economic issues, not the Waqf Bill.
The Waqf Amendment Bill was passed by both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and came into effect on April 8, 2025. While the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supported the Bill, the Opposition, including the INDIA alliance, opposed it. Some Muslim groups and Opposition MPs have even challenged the law in the Supreme Court, calling it unconstitutional.
Amid this, social media users have shared the old video, falsely claiming that Priyanka was protesting against the Waqf Bill.
One Facebook user wrote, “All India National Congress General Secretary MP Priyanka Gandhi sits on the streets to protest against the Waqf Bill.”
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Fact-check
BOOM conducted a reverse image search on key frames from the video. The search led us to a news report by NDTV, which showed the same visuals.
According to NDTV's report, the Congress party organised a nationwide protest on August 5, 2022, to highlight economic issues like falling GDP, rising inflation, and GST rates.
We also found visuals of Priyanka jumping over a police barricade placed near the AICC headquarters during the party protest in 2022 and was subsequently detained by the Delhi police
During this protest, Congress MPs, led by Rahul Gandhi, marched from Parliament House to Rashtrapati Bhavan. However, the police stopped them midway and took them into custody.
Notably, during the protest, Delhi Police detained several other Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, and KC Venugopal.
We also searched for any recent news about a protest by the Congress party specifically against the Waqf Amendment Act, but we couldn’t find any reports of a sit-in protest. However, the Congress party has strongly opposed the Act.
On April 7, 2025, Congress MLA Irfan Hafeez Lone expressed the party's opposition to the Waqf Amendment Act. He stated that the Act is an attack on secularism and federalism. He said, “We want to tell the nation that we are against this Act. This is an attack on secularism and federalism. This way (with black cloth), we are registering our protest. We will continue to show our protest.”
Congress national media in-charge Jairam Ramesh posted on X that the Congress party is currently challenging various laws in the Supreme Court, including the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, amendments to the RTI Act (2005), and others. He also stated that the party will soon challenge the constitutionality of the Waqf Amendment Bill 2025 in court.