An old video showing Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman refusing to answer a question criticising the budget is being shared online as a recent video.
BOOM found that the claims are misleading, the video is from February 2023 and is unrelated to the recent interim budget presented by Sitharaman.
On February 1, 2024, Nirmala Sitharaman presented her sixth consecutive budget in the Parliament. While there were not many changes made to the direct and indirect tax rate, the FM reiterated the focus on youth and women empowerment and overall social justice.
The video shows a journalist asking Sitharaman for her reaction on the opposition calling the budget "not good enough." When Sitharaman asks the journalist to elaborate, the latter says that the criticism was about the budget not being good enough for the middle class. Sitharaman then makes a shocked expression and says "next question please."
The video was shared on X with the caption, "Watch this 🚨 Nirmala Sitharaman held a press conference & a journalist asked a question about budget. She went arrogant. Look at blood boiling expressions. A neutral media would ripped this govt apart into pieces for this."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The video is also being shared on Facebook with similar captions.
Click here to view the post.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the viral claims are misleading, the video is from February 2023 and is unrelated to the recent interim budget announced by Sitharaman.
Taking a cue from Sitharaman's "next question please" response, we ran a keyword search for the video on Google and found a report by The Economic Times published on February 1, 2023.
The report was titled 'Watch: FM Sitharaman left speechless over Opposition's response on Budget 2023' and carried visuals similar to the viral video.
Similar reports were published by Brut India and Hindustan Times on February 1, 2023.
Below is a comparison between the viral video and the original video from last year:
We then ran a search for a full version of this press conference held in 2023 and found a YouTube livestream by PIB India from February 1. The video was titled 'Union Budget 2023-24: Post-Budget Conference by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman' and showed the finance minister addressing the post-budget press conference.
The portion of the video from 42:52 was an exact match to the viral video.