An edited video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with several jump-cuts is circulating on social media with a false claim that it shows him speaking about south Indian cuisines like dosas and vadas during an election campaign.
X posts with the video, which appears to show Gandhi making an incoherent speech, mocked him for discussing the south Indian staples while delivering a speech.
BOOM found that the video has been heavily edited to join several unrelated parts to take a jibe at Gandhi. In the original video Gandhi was criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his one nation, one language and one leader concept.
The 16-second video shows Rahul Gandhi saying, “And you say I like dosas. You come here, you tell the people of Tamil Nadu you like dosa ... at the same time, you say you like dosa, you might like dosa, you might like vadas also, you say you like...”
A verified X user posted the video with the caption, "When you bring a buffoon like Rahul Gandhi to an election campaign, this is what you will get to hear."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Fact Check
BOOM found that the clip is made extracting several portions of Rahul Gandhi's speech delivered in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, on April 13, 2024.
The original speech of Rahul Gandhi was streamed live on his official YouTube channel on April 12, 2024.
From 46:14 minutes onwards, Gandhi can be heard saying, "Now the voice of the Tamil people is asking a few simple questions. It is asking Narendra Modi, Mr. Adani and the RSS these questions. The first question is why are you attacking our language, our history and our tradition. You come here and you say I like dosas. And then you go back to Delhi, you say one nation, one leader, one language. Why one language? Why not space for Tamil, why not space for Bengali, why not space for Kannada, why not space for Manipuri?"
Gandhi then goes on to add, "So, you come here, you tell the people of Tamil Nadu you like dosa and then you insult them, and you attack their culture, their history, their language. At the same time, you say you like dosa and Tamil farmers are starving, Tamil youth are unemployed. You destroyed small and medium industry by carrying out demonetisation and a flawed GST - for the first time in Indian history farmers are paying tax."
He further adds, “Modiji you might like dosa, you might like vadas also, but that is not the issue here. Nobody cares whether you like dosa or you like vada. We care whether you like the Tamil language. We care whether you respect Tamil history. And we care for about what you are doing for the future of this country and Tamil Nadu.”
Gandhi used dosa and vadas as a metaphor to allege the Modi government's push for a monolith language and culture.