A cropped video of former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is being shared with the false claim that he said that Dr BR Ambedkar drafted the Indian Constitution when he was ‘drunk’.
BOOM found that the original video is from a 2012 speech and shows Kejriwal discussing the Congress party’s constitution, and not making any reference to Dr BR Ambedkar, the father of Indian Constitution.
Several parties including the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have called for Home Minister Amit Shah to apologise over his remarks about Dr Ambedkar while speaking in the Rajya Sabha on December 17, 2024. Shah was attacking the Congress in his speech and had made a statement saying that invoking Ambedkar has become a 'fashion' for the opposition. Kejriwal has been hitting out at Shah claiming that his statement was "disrespectful" towards Dr Ambedkar.
The video is being shared with the caption, "BR Ambedkar was drunk while writing the Constitution: @ArvindKejriwal. He should be Arrested." In the video, Kejriwal can be heard saying in Hindi: So we were sitting. Somebody said that whoever wrote the Constitution must have been drunk.
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A watermark of the X handle Politics Pe Charcha (@politicscharcha) is visible on the cropped video. BOOM has previously fact-checked the handle for sharing misinformation.
FACT-CHECK: In 2012 Kejriwal questioned Congress Party's constitution and not Dr Ambedkar
BOOM found that the viral video has been cropped to make the false claim that Arvind Kejriwal made remarks against Dr BR Ambedkar.
The original speech was delivered on November 25, 2012, where Kejriwal can be heard taking a dig at Congress Party's constitution and a membership clause which stated that abstinence from alcohol was a necessary prerequisite to be a party member.
Taking a hint from the replies to the viral X post, we found the original speech posted in December 2012 on YouTube. In the video Kejriwal takes a dig at the writers of the Congress Party's constitution and was not talking about Dr Ambedkar as being claimed.
In his speech Kejriwal talks about AAP's constitution and compares it to constitutions of other parties including BJP and Congress. AAP had been recently founded in October that year and Kejriwal's speech was focused on the party's new constitution, and he claimed that it was better than Congress and BJP constitutions.
From the 4.38 minutes timestamp, Kejriwal says, "I've studied many party's constitutions. Congress' constitution says that no Congress member will consume alcohol. So, we were sitting and discussing and someone said maybe the person writing Congress' constitution was drunk."
The part where he talks about the Congress and BJP constitutions has been edited out to make the false claim that he is making a statement against Dr Ambedkar.
The whole speech which was posted in December, 2012 can be seen below:
Additionally, the party clause which Kejriwal was referring to was later dropped by the Congress in February 2023. During the amendment, the clause about abstinence from alcohol as a necessary condition to be a party member was dropped and wearing khadi was made optional.
