Student Disagreed With Gandhi on Employment Issue? Video Is Edited

A video of Rahul Gandhi interacting with students in Assam has been cropped to create this false narrative.

Fact-Check on Assam Polls | We found that the viral video was incomplete and it tried to create an alternate narrative of the incident. 

(Photo: The Quint)

A video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's interaction with college students at a campaign rally in Assam has been cropped to create a false narrative that a student disagreed with Gandhi on the issue of unemployment when he asked them about it.

In the video, Gandhi can be seen asking the students if unemployment has increased during the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) government. Answering this question, a student says that it “has not increased”. The viral video gets cut at this point.

However, we went through the complete interaction and found that the student later said that unemployment has increased after an interpreter in the crowd explained the question to him.

CLAIM

The viral video has been shared by many with a caption that read in Hindi, “गजब बेइज्जती है यार”. [Translation: That’s some embarrassment.]

The first part of the video shows the interaction between Gandhi and the student, and it is cut abruptly where the student says “not increased” in Hindi, when Gandhi asks if unemployment has increased in the state. The viral video then contains a montage of clips from Hindi web series and movies, to make fun of the politician.

An archive of the post can be found here.

An archive of the post can be found here.

An archive of the post can be found here.

An archive of the post can be found here.

An archive of the post can be found here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

For the entire conversation, we looked for the full video of the campaign rally. We found that the rally was organised in Lahowal, Dibrugarh, where Gandhi addressed some college students. We found that the entire video of the interaction was posted on Indian National Congress’ official YouTube channel.

Gandhi’s interaction with the college student starts at 17:14 in the video and at 24:16, the part in the viral video can be seen. Gandhi can be seen speaking to the translator and asking him to ask the student, “Do they (students) feel that unemployment has increased during the BJP rule?”

As soon as Rahul's question is over, the student says “has not increased”, but instantly explains what he means.

The translator present near the student also explains Gandhi’s question to the student, after which the student immediately says in Assamese that unemployment is increasing. 

Gandhi then asks the reason behind the increase in unemployment and the student responds.

Evidently, the viral video of Gandhi’s interaction with college students in Assam was cut abruptly to mislead people and create a false narrative.

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