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Amit Malviya and several other BJP functionaries have shared a cropped clip of Rahul Gandhi where he claims that India is a country of ascetics (tapasvis) and not priests (poojaris). The claim is being used to imply that Gandhi insulted poojaris in his recent press conference. BOOM has found that the claim is false and the clip has been taken out of context.
Rahul Gandhi's nation-wide rally, Bharat Jodo Yatra, that started in September 2022 from Kanyakumari is currently in Haryana.
Amid this, a video from one of his recent press conferences where he is heard saying that India is not a country of priests anymore is going viral with false claims that Gandhi has a "problem" with priests. Shared by BJP national IT head Amit Malviya, the video is shared with the caption, "Now they have a problem with the priests too…"
(Original text in Hindi: "अब इनको पुजारियों से भी तकलीफ़ है…")
Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.
Saurabh Marodia, another BJP worker has shared the clip with the same caption.
Click here to view the tweet.
The clip is also viral on Facebook.
Click here to view.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral clip has been altered and taken out of context to peddle the false claim that Gandhi insulted priests in his press conference.
By using relevant keywords, we found the full video of the press conference on the Indian National Congress' YouTube channel.
After watching the video, we were able to conclude that Gandhi uses the words "tapasya" and "poojari" in a different context. According to him, the hard workers of the country and the people of the Congress party are tapasvis, and for them, skill is the most important thing to be worshipped. Gandhi adds that the BJP is a party of poojaris, one who get people to worship them forcefully. It was in this context that Gandhi said, "India is a country of tapasvis, not poojaris."
This conversation begins at the 27:00 mark in the press conference video when Gandhi is asked about the increased momentum of the Bharat Jodo Yatra. His response, roughly translated from Hindi was, "The Congress party is an organisation of austerity. If you apply it in penance, then its energy increases. The BJP is an organisation of worship. If you use it in worship, then it gets power. There are two ways of worship. One is generally when the devotee goes to God and asks for something. But the initiative belongs to the devotee. The way of worship for RSS is different. They want people to worship them forcefully. Modi ji wants to be worshiped forcefully and insists everyone in the country should worship him. The answer for this can only be penance. That's why this yatra is successful and not only Congress, but lakhs of people are doing penance in it. This is the message of the journey. Congress says that austerity and skill should be respected. But BJP says that there should be no respect for penance, the one who worships us will be respected."
At the 36:00 mark, another journalist asks him about his passion for tapasya, and whether he is ascetic now. To this, he responds, "This is a country of ascetics. Some people have said, 'Look how much Rahul Gandhi has walked.' Why don't people talk about how much the farmers have marched? There is not a single farmer in India who has walked less than I have. You won't find one labourer in India who has walked less than I. Why don't we say, 'Look how much the labourer has walked?' Because we don't respect austerity (tapasya). But I do. So, this is what we have to change. This country is of tapasivs, not poojaris. That is the reality. And if we want to become a superpower, we have to respect tapasvis"
Seven seconds from this statement of his have been taken out of context to claim that Rahul Gandhi has spoken against priests in general.
We have done several fact-checks of false claims around Rahul Gandhi during the course of his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Read them here.