A cropped video of Rahul Gandhi is circulating on social media falsely claiming that the Congress leader admitted during a press conference that strict action will be taken against Hindus once the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is out of power.
BOOM found the viral claim is false. A longer version of the video shows that Gandhi criticised government agencies the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Election Commission of India and described them as 'tools' of the BJP. He further described electoral bonds as the biggest source of corruption while raising question on the workings of central investigating agencies and the Election Commission.
Sharing the video on X, a user wrote in Hindi, "Rahul Khan himself is saying in front of the media that Hindus should think that someday the BJP government will change. Then action will be taken against them. And such action will be taken that they will remember it for the rest of their lives. jay shree Ram.”
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The video is also viral on Facebook with the same false claim.
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Fact Check: Rahul Gandhi was talking about CBI, ED and the Election Commission
BOOM found that the video has been cropped and that Gandhi was speaking about taking “action” against central agencies like CBI, ED and the Election Commission.
Using the keyframes of the viral video, we ran a reverse image search on Google which led us to a video report on News24's YouTube channel.
We also found a full video of the press conference on the Indian National Congress's YouTube channel. Towards the end of the press conference, at 16:30 minutes timestamp, a journalist asked Gandhi, "the names of the companies that have funded you through Electoral Bonds have also been revealed. Do you think they can also be targeted through ED and CBI?"
Gandhi alleged that government agencies were 'tools' of BJP
"There is no such thing as CBI or ED, they are tools of the BJP. It is controlled by BJP. Our institutions that used to be in Hindustan, those institutions do not belong to Hindustan anymore. Be it the Election Commission, CBI or ED," Gandhi explained.
Regarding the revelation of electoral bonds, Gandhi further said, “These are all weapons of the BJP-RSS now. These are not institutions of Hindustan now. What is happening is possible only because of this. If these institutions had done their job, then this would not have happened. So, they should also think that all these that they are doing. Someday the BJP government will go, action will be taken on that day. And there will be such action that I guarantee that this will never happen again."
We also spoke to the Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate to ascertain the veracity of the viral video. She too described the video as cropped and the claim being made with it as false.