Ahead of parliamentary elections in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Jharkhand in November, a video of opposition leader Rahul Gandhi circulated on social media, alongside false claims of him threatening Hindu voters in the South Asian country. The video showed Gandhi criticizing government agencies under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“When the BJP government is gone, such actions will be taken against the Hindus that they could never have imagined. Open threat by terrorist organization Congress,” said a Hindi-language post, referring to the opposition Indian National Congress party, that was shared. on X on November 18, 2024.
The post contained a 21-second video of party leader Gandhi with the caption: “When the BJP is gone, watch the action.”
Gandhi can be heard saying in Hindi, “So they should also think about this… those who are doing these things, one day the BJP government will change, and then there will be action. And there will be such action be taken that, I guarantee, this will never happen again.”
Screenshot of the fake message, taken on November 19, 2024
The post surfaced ahead of the November 20 state assembly elections, where Gandhi’s Congress party, in alliance with other regional parties, sought to wrest power in Maharashtra from the Hindu nationalist BJP and retain control of Jharkhand.
Supporters of the BJP have often accused Congress of being more favorable to India’s estimated 200 million Muslim minority.
Prime Minister Modi had also accused Gandhi of insulting Hindus in his first speech as Leader of the Opposition in the lower house of Parliament in July.archived link)
The video was shared with similar false claims elsewhere on X and on Facebook.
Wrongly displayed video
Above the falsely shared video is the logo and name of Indian news channel CNBC Awaaz.
A combination of Google reverse image searches and keywords found the same video shared to the outlet’s official X account on March 15, 2024 (archived link).
The caption of the post read: “Rahul Gandhi’s statement on electoral bonds.”
Another keyword search on YouTube revealed that the footage was also streamed live on Gandhi’s verified channel on March 15, 2024 (archived link).
The Congress leader was addressing a press conference in Maharashtra at the end of his nine-week ‘Justice March’, a sequel to his earlier Pan India March (archived link).
At 6:04 in the video, Gandhi said in Hindi, “The institutions we had in India – those institutions are no more. Whether it is the Election Commission, the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) or the ED (Directorate Enforcement) – they are now weapons of the BJP and RSS. That is why things are like this if these institutions had performed their duties, none of this would have happened.
From the time stamp of 6:34 PM, Gandhi said, “So they should also think about this… those who are doing these things, one day the BJP government will change and then there will be action. And such action I will Guarantee this will never happen again.”
Gandhi did not make any threats to the Hindus during the twenty-minute press conference.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in Fake Posts (left) and the video uploaded on Gandhi’s YouTube channel (right):
Screenshot comparison of the clip shared in fake posts (left) and the video uploaded on Gandhi’s YouTube channel (right)
The Indian government implemented its electoral bond scheme on January 2, 2018, under which Indian citizens and business groups could anonymously donate unlimited amounts of money to any political party (archived link).
AFP reported that the BJP was the biggest beneficiary of the scheme, receiving $730 million, or about 47 percent of the bonds raised since April 2019 (archived link).
In February 2024, India’s Supreme Court declared the controversial financing plan ‘unconstitutional’ (archived link).
