A short clip of Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, speaking during an interview, has gone viral on social media.
What does he say in the video?: In the video, Gadkari speaks in Hindi, saying, "Today the villages, poor, labourers and farmers are unhappy. There are no good roads, no pure water to drink, no good hospitals, no good schools in the villages."
Who shared the video?: The official X (formerly Twitter) accounts of the Congress party and its leaders, shared this video. Some of them include:
The Indian National Congress' main account.
Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate.
Indian Youth Congress' national president Srinivas BV.
(Swipe to view all posts.)
The INC's account shared the video.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
But...?: The video has been edited to misrepresent Gadkari's statement.
In the full video of the interview, it is evident that Gadkari was talking about the condition of the rural, tribal, and agricultural economies over a long period of time, starting from when India became independent.
How did we find out?: We noticed news organisation The Lallantop's logo on the top right corner of the video.
We looked for the video on the organisation's verified YouTube channel.
Here, we came across a long interview with the Union minister, published on 29 February 2024.
We went through this video, where the interviewer, journalist Saurabh Dwivedi, discusses Gadkari's youth and entry into politics, exploring how the minister started off as a businessman in Nagpur before foraying into politics.
What did he say?: Gadkari spoke about how, in his youth, he saw farmers suicides around him in Maharashtra, telling the interviewer that he had decided to work to solve the problem.
He spoke about empowering farmers and the agrarian sector with infrastructural development, sharing statistics about the contributions of the agricultural, manufacturing, and service sectors to India's economy.
Around 18 minutes into the interview, Gadkari talks about how 90 percent of India's population resided in rural areas "when Gandhiji was around."
"Why did 30 percent of this population migrate over time? Today, villagers, poor people, labourers, and farmers are sad. The reason is that water, land, forests and wildlife – rural, agricultural and tribal – these economies do not have good roads, potable water, good hospitals, good schools. Farmers don't get good prices for their crops, and the sustainable development that had to happen, has happened."Union Minister Nitin Gadkari to The Lallantop
"It's not that it didn't happen. But it did not happen in proportion to other sectors," he said, before going on to talk about the current government's work for them.
"After our government came to power, we have worked a lot for this. We have identified 550 aspirant blocks and 120 aspirant districts were identified by Modiji, to work on," Gadkari stated.
Elaborating further on these issues, the minister spoke about their plans to help these sectors progress by helping them set up more ways to earn a livelihood.
In the context of the interview, it is evident that the Union minister was speaking about the condition of the rural, agricultural and tribal economies since India's independence, and did not speak against the government at the Centre.
On X, Gadkari's office shared the clipped and longer version of the video, calling out the Congress for their post.
As per media reports by The Times of India and The Indian Express, Gadkari sent a legal notice to Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Jairam Ramesh over this video.
The Union minister has reportedly asked the party to take down all the clipped videos immediately and issue an apology in three days' time, failing which he would pursue legal action.
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