An edited and cropped video of Delhi Chief Minister and national convenor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal is being shared to misleadingly claim that he said corruption should continue in the country.
BOOM found that in the original version of the video, Kejriwal was taking a dig at people who criticise his freebies policy but do not raise their voice against corruption.
In the 13 seconds long viral clip, Kejriwal can be heard saying, "I have not seen a single economist write an article stating that the country will be ruined if corruption continues. Corruption should continue..."
The video shows a split screen with the Delhi CM speaking on the left and screenshots of headlines of corruption allegations against AAP leaders, on the right. The clip is being shared by Bharatiya Janata Party supporters.
Click here to view the post.
Click here to view the post.
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Fact Check
Taking a cue from the speech, we ran a relevant keyword search in Hindi for the words 'economist' and 'corruption' (अर्थशास्त्री, भ्रष्टाचार) on Twitter and found Aam Aadmi Party's tweet published on May 8, 2022.
The tweet carried a longer version of the same video with a Hindi caption which translates to, "Nowadays, big economists are writing that if freebies continues, the country will be ruined. Not a single economist has written that the country will be ruined if "corruption" continues. No one even wrote that freebies of politicians should be stopped. Only the public should be barred. - CM Arvind Kejriwal."
Click here to view the tweet.
In the one minute and 45 seconds long video Kejriwal can be heard saying the following. "Do you know, each politician gets four thousand units electricity in free of cost. If you get four thousand units electricity per month you do not have a problem with that, but if a poor gets 200 units electricity free, every politician starts shouting about freebies. The politicians get free medical treatment, visit America for treatments but if a poor gets free medicines in a government hospital then they term it as freebies. Nowadays, I am observing big economists are writing articles about freebies in the newspapers - if the freebies culture is continued then the country will be ruined. I have not seen a single economist to write an article stating that the country will be ruined if corruption is continued. Corruption should continue.."
He continued saying, "How I am being able to provide freebies? How I am getting money for it? I do not have the money for it. I ended corruption. The money that used to go to the pockets of politicians, officers - now I distribute it among you people. I make someone's electricity free, someone's medicines free.. All the big economists who are writing against me, they are not writing that corruption should end. No one is writing it. (They) say corruption is a good thing, it should continue. We also get (a portion) from it. Freebies should stop. No one even wrote that the freebies of politicians should stop, but the people's freebies should stop. This will not happen."
The entire speech of Arvind Kejriwal was uploaded tp Aam Aadmi Party's official YouTube channel on May 8, 2021. It can be seen below.
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