A clipped video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is being massively circulated on social media with a claim that he is unaware of the measuring unit of aata (flour). In the video, Gandhi can be heard saying, "Flour was Rs 22/litre and today it is Rs 40/litre."
The video was shared by several leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) including Kailash Vijayvargiya (archive here) to mock Gandhi. National Spokesperson of the BJP, Sambit Patra, also hit out at Gandhi and used the litre reference to mock him. (Archive here)
The claim came after the 'Halla Bol' rally – organised by the Congress party – at the Ramlila Maidan on 4 September, where Gandhi addressed the gathering and targeted the government on various issues, including price rise and unemployment.
However, the video is clipped. While Gandhi did use the word 'litre', a longer video shows that he immediately corrected himself after realising his mistake and using the correct unit.
CLAIM
While sharing the video, Vijayvargiya wrote, "शायद राहुलजी आटा लीटर में खरीदते हैं...!!"
(Translation: Maybe Rahul ji buys flour in litres.")
The former BJP IT Cell in charge of Haryana, Arjun Yadav, shared the video (archive here) with the caption in Hindi, which loosely translates to, "Are you seeing Vinod.. Flour is now Rs 22 per litre."
BJP's Priti Gandhi has also shared the video (archive here).
Several other verified users have also shared this viral video to take a dig at Gandhi and his party. At the time of writing, the clipped video had more than 5,46,000 views.
Archives of similar posts can be found here, here, here, and here.
WHAT WE FOUND
We performed a google search using the keywords 'Rahul Gandhi + price rise' and came across several articles which talked about his gaffe at the Halla Bol rally.
A report published by Zee News on 5 September mentions the faux pas of the Congress leader when he said, "Flour was Rs 22 per litre." However, it further mentions that Gandhi immediately corrected himself and followed up with using the correct unit – kg.
We also found a video uploaded on the official YouTube channel of ANI titled, "LIVE: Rahul Gandhi addresses ‘Mehangai Par Halla Bol’ rally at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi."
At around the 8:52 timestamp in the video, Gandhi speaks about the rising prices and unemployment in the country. He says, "The unemployment rate that can be seen today is going to worsen in the future. At one hand, people are facing the wrath of unemployment and on the other, they are facing the rising prices."
It was when talking about the rising prices that Gandhi said:
"I have some figures. In 2014, the cost of LPG cylinder was Rs 410, today it is 1050. Petrol was Rs 70/litre and today it is approximately Rs 100... Flour was Rs 22 per litre and now it is Rs 40 per litre, (takes pause) kg."
We found that the pause after which Gandhi corrects himself, missing from the viral video. At exact the 9:55 timestamp in the video, the Congress leader can be heard immediately following up with the word "kg".
A short clip of the same was shared by the official Twitter handle of the Congress.
In the past, we have debunked several such videos which were either edited or shared out of context to mock Gandhi mostly for targeting the government.
Earlier, BJP IT Cell Head Amit Malviya had shared a clipped video of Gandhi to claim that he said that he was 'fighting against India's entire infrastructure'. There was another one where it was claimed that Gandhi said that he had directly spoken to Mahatma Gandhi.
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