No, Rahul Gandhi Didn’t Turn Around When Asked To Turn the Poster

The video is doctored. The longer version shows that Gandhi takes a dig at the BJP before turning around.

Fact-check: The claim states that Rahul Gandhi turned around when the reporters asked him to turn around the poster.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video showing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi turning around after reporters ask him to show a poster's backside is going viral on social media to mock the leader.

As soon as he turns around, a dialogue from the Bollywood film 3 Idiots starts playing in Hindi, “Lord, you are great, please accept by gift.”

This comes as Gandhi is on a 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' in which he is going to cover 11 states and two Union Territories in about five months.

However, this viral video is altered. The longer version of the same video shows that Gandhi turns around to show his back after making a remark about how Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would have reacted in that moment.

CLAIM

The claim along with the viral video says in Hindi, "When the journalist asked to show the poster's backside, Rahul showed his own back."

An archive of this post can be seen here. 

Similar claims can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT 

We divided the video into multiple keyframes using a video verification tool, InVid, and ran a reverse image search on some of them. This led us to an image uploaded by a stock photo website Alamy, which showed Rahul Gandhi in the same setting.

The image dated 19 January 2021 carried a description that stated Gandhi attended a press conference at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters, Delhi.

In this picture, Gandhi can be seen with Congress leaders Randeep Singh Surjewala and KC Venugopal.

Alamy carried this photo from 2021.

Taking a cue, we performed a keyword search using 'Rahul Gandhi press conference AICC farmers laws Delhi' on Google and came across a YouTube live stream video from 19 January 2021 uploaded by the official channel of the Congress party.

Gandhi released a booklet on the farm laws called 'Kheti ka khoon' at the conference.

While holding the poster upright and showing it to the media, at 2:23 timestamp, Gandhi says, “See how fair we are, we are showing it (poster) here, here and here too. If it would have been the BJP, they would have done this,” and then he proceeds to turn around to show his back.

The viral video has been doctored midway with an overlay of a dialogue and music to cover up Gandhi's remark about the BJP.

Clearly, an edited clip of Rahul Gandhi is being shared to troll him.

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