A video from last year where Rahul Gandhi while showcasing a booklet on farm laws to media persons turned around, is being shared on social media with misleading claims targeting the former Congress president.
The video, whose audio has been muted and overlaid with a film dialogue, is being shared claiming Gandhi turned around showing his back to photographers when they asked him to show the back view of the booklet he was holding.
The video has been overlaid with a dialogue from the Bollywood film 3 Idiots saying "Jahanpanah tussi great ho, tohfa kabool karo", to take a dig at the Congress leader.
BOOM found that the video is altered. The original video shows Rahul Gandhi was mocking the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) while turning around.
The Hindi caption with the video translates to, "When a journalist asked to show the poster from behind too, then our Rahul ji showed his back... What an item he is.."
(Original Text in Hindi: ज़ब पत्रकार नें कहा पोस्टर पीछे से भी दिखाओ तो अपने राहुल जी ने पिछवाड़ा दिखा दिया,, क्या आईटम है यार,,,)
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BJP leader and former Bihar cabinet minister Jibesh Kumar too posted the video with a similar claim.
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Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the key-frames and found an image on a stock photo website named Alamy where Rahul Gandhi can be seen in the same attire as seen in the viral video.
The photograph also shows other Congress leaders such as Randeep Singh Surjewala and K.C. Venugopal is present in the frame similar to the video in circulation.
The picture is captioned as, "New Delhi, India. 19th Jan, 2021. Indian National Congress (opposition party) leader, Rahul Gandhi (C), AICC General Secretary, Randeep Singh Surjewala (L) and K.C. Venugopal (R) seen during a press conference about the issue of new Farmers Laws at All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarter.He also said 'I am not scared of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others, they cannot touch me but they can shoot me. I am patriot and I am more fanatic than them.'"
Taking a cue, we looked for the video of the press conference which took place on January 19, 2021 and found the event was streamed live on the same date from Indian National Congress's official YouTube channel.
We went through the video and found the same interaction took place in between the 2:21 minute and 2:35 minute timestamp.
A longer version of the video shows Gandhi mocked the BJP and turned his back to media persons. He can be heard saying in Hindi, "See how fair we are... we are showing it from each side...if it was the BJP, they would do this" (turns around).
The viral clip omits Gandhi's audio and has overlaid it with a dialogue from the movie 3 Idiots.
According to a The Hindu article published on January 19, 2021, Rahul Gandhi released a booklet named Kheti ka khoon (murder of farming) on the controversial farm laws to highlight the problems of farmers. The Congress leader also alleged that the new farm laws were 'designed to destroy' agriculture and create monopolies by three-four capitalists.