Did PM Modi Say BJP Is 'Dividing and Ruling'? No, the Video Is Edited

The original video dates back to 2014, which shows PM Modi accusing Congress of 'dividing the country'.

The claim suggests that PM Modi said his party is dividing and ruling the country.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech is being circulated on the internet with a claim that he said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is 'dividing and ruling the country'.

In the video, PM Modi can be heard saying, "Brothers and sisters, divide and rule is our tradition (BJP) and unite and develop is Congress' tradition."

However, we found that the video is edited. In a longer version of the video uploaded in April 2014 on the BJP's official YouTube channel, PM Modi can be heard saying the exact opposite of what the viral video claims.

In this video, he says, "Brothers and sisters, divide and rule is Congress' tradition and unite and develop is our (BJP) tradition."

CLAIM

The claim suggests that PM Modi said dividing and ruling is BJP's tradition. The video was shared with a caption in Hindi, that said "मोदी जी कभी झूठ नही बोलते. यकीन ना हो तो वीडियो देख लो."

(Translation: Modi ji never lies. If you dont' believe me, watch this video.)

An archive of the post can be seen here. 

Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

The 20-second-long viral video evidently had two cuts. There was a cut after PM Modi said, "Brothers and sisters, divide and rule", and another one after he said, "unite and develop is...".

We extracted the keyframes of the video and performed a reverse image search on one of them using Yandex. This led us to a tweet posted on 3 April 2014 by ANI with a picture of the then prime ministerial candidate Modi, which said, "For Congress, secularism is divide and rule, for us it is unite and work for the nation: Narendra Modi."

Taking this as a cue, we then searched for the video on the official channel of the BJP on YouTube and found a 35-minute-long video uploaded on the same date as the tweet. It was titled, "Shri Narendra Modi addresses Bharat Vijay Rally in Vaishali (Ghaziabad) UP".

The rally was held in the runup to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which were held in April-May of that year.

In this video, he can be heard accusing the Congress party for dividing the nation. At around the 14:47 mark in the video, PM Modi can be heard saying in Hindi, "

Brothers and sisters, divide and rule is Congress' tradition and unite and rule is our (BJP) tradition.

PM Narendra Modi

Further, we also came across another video, which was live-streamed on PM Modi's official YouTube channel on 3 April 2014, which had the same statement at around the 12:55 mark.

Evidently, an edited video of PM Modi's speech from 2014 is being shared to take a dig at him and the BJP.

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