CLAIM
A viral clipping suggesting that Congress President Rahul Gandhi has said that women in UP \”give birth to 52 babies a year” has been doing the rounds on social media.
The 10-second clip has him say, “यूपी में ऐसी महिलाएं हैं जो हर सप्ताह एक बच्चा पैदा कर सकती हैं, ऐसी महिलाएं हैं जो साल में 52 बच्चे दे रहीं हैं ।”
(Translated: There are women in UP who can give birth every week, women who give birth to 52 babies a year.”)
Various tweets and Facebook videos with this claim are present:
The same video was also sent to us on our WhatsApp helpline by our reader, Avinash Tiwari.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim made in this video is completely false, and there is an important context missing from the clipping.
The video is actually part of a news package done by India TV seven years ago. This particular news package saw Rahul Gandhi addressing a rally in Phoolpur, Uttar Pradesh. He was lashing out against “rampant corruption” propagated by the BSP, which was then the party in power in UP.
He was actually talking about the Janani Suraksha Yojana under the National Rural Health Mission and how there was absolute misuse of it in UP.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
One of the key frames in the 10-second clipping shows the text, उत्तर प्रदेश में जिधर भी देखो भ्र्ष्टाचार है (Translated: There is corruption wherever you look in Uttar Pradesh).
Using the cue of ‘corruption’, we conducted a search on India TV’s YouTube channel. This eventually led us to coming across the 8.10-minute news package which was published on 14 November 2011.
Rahul Gandhi is seen addressing a rally in Phoolpur, Uttar Pradesh. With all guns blazing, he talks about how BSP is knee-deep in corruption.
Between 5.16-5.59 minutes in the video, we hear him say, “मैं National Rural Health Mission की बात करता हूँ। हज़ारो करोड़ रूपए दिल्ली की सर्कार ने यूपी के सर्कार को भेजा, जननी सुरक्षा योजना एक प्रोग्राम है। 1400 रूपए मिलते हैं महिला को जब अस्पताल में बचा होता है। हमने RTI माँगा, RTI में जो हमे रिपोर्ट मिली, यूपी में ऐसी महिलाएं हैं जो हर सप्ताह एक बच्चा पैदा कर सकती हैं। ऐसी महिलाएं हैं जो साल में ५२ बच्चे दे रही हैं। एक ही नाम है, १४०० रूपए हर सप्ताह उसके जेब में।”
(Translated: Let me talk about the National Rural Health Mission. Thousands of crores of rupees are sent to the UP government by the Delhi government. There is a programme called Janani Suraksha Yojana where Rs 1,400 are given to a woman after she gives birth in a hospital. We filed an RTI. The report we got from the RTI showed that there are such women in UP who give birth every week. There are also women who can give birth to 52 babies in a year. There is one name that takes the Rs 1400 in her pockets.)
Thus, he was just talking about gross malpractice that was occurring under the national scheme. The 10-second clipping takes it completely out of context and portrays a different picture.
Hence, the viral video doing the rounds claiming that Rahul Gandhi was talking about women being able to give birth to 52 babies a year is false.
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