A 10-year-old video of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari slamming the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over his remarks on those protesting against corruption in the country has been revived on social media as a recent one.
This comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the term, ‘Andolanjeevi’ – referring to people who live off protests – in the Rajya Sabha on Monday, 8 February, while defending the farm laws, against which the farmers are protesting. He reiterated that the country must differentiate between ‘andolonjeevis’ and ‘andolankaris’ in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
CLAIM
The video was shared by several users with the claim,
“कल प्रधानमंत्री मोदी जी ने सदन में #आन्दोलनजीवी #परजीवी जैसा कुछ कहा।और आज नितिन गडकरी जी उनके विरुद्ध प्रेस के सामने ये कह रहे हैं।”
(Translation: “Yesterday, Prime Minister Modi said something like #Andolanjeevi #Parasite in the House, and today Nitin Gadkari is speaking against him in front of the press.”)
Another user shared the video with the caption, “Gadkari’s brilliant reply to Prime Minister’s ‘andolanjeevi’ remark,” garnering over 32,100 views at the time of writing this article.
The video was also shared widely on Facebook with a similar claim.
User Sohail Sahil garnered over 19,000 views at the time of writing this article.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
In the video Nitin Gadkari can be heard saying that the right to protest is a fundamental right of every citizen, conferred by the Constitution and not the Congress party or the Prime Minister.
He asks on what basis the Prime Minister has slammed the people’s peaceful protest.
He then goes on to say that “these people met Ramdev baba calling him a saint, and held discussions with Anna Hazare at least ten times. Then, they were nice. Now when they are demanding an abolition of corruption, they are being silenced.”
With a relevant keyword search, we came across the full video on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s YouTube channel dated 15 August 2011 and uploaded on 16 August.
The full video indicates that Gadkari was referring to the anti-corruption movement that swept the nation in 2011, spearheaded by activist Anna Hazare.
The then PM Manmohan Singh had stated during his speech for the Independence Day in 2011, that a Bill had been introduced in the Parliament against corruption and those who had objections should “put forward their views to Parliament, political parties and even the press.”
“I also believe that they should not resort to hunger strikes and fasts unto death,” he added.
Evidently, an old video of Gadkari has been revived with the false claim that he slammed PM Modi for the word ‘andolanjeevi.’
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