A video has been circulated on social media showing Rahul Gandhi requesting a stick with the Indian flag from the crowd at his rally during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Maharashtra. The claim suggests that the Congress leader asked for the removal of the Indian flag.
A Facebook user posted with a caption: “Insulting Tricolour: Rahul Gandhi asks supporter to remove Nation Flag from stick.”
Here is the link to the above post.
The viral clip was also posted on X by Bharatiya Janata Party IT cell chief Amit Malviya with a caption: “Rahul Gandhi asks India’s flag to be taken down…This is straight out of George Soros’s rule book, where he asks his protégée to insult and demean everything Indian.” (Archive)
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above claim, and found it to be MISLEADING.
Examining the video keyframes carefully, our team identified the primary footage streamed live by INC on March 13, 2024, with a title: “BharatJodoNyayYatra Resumes from Dondaicha, Maharashtra.”
Upon reviewing this video, spanning 28 minutes and 55 seconds, we noticed that the viral segment occurred approximately at the 9-minute and 58-second mark. In this segment, Rahul invites a man from the crowd to join him, inquiring about his name, to which the individual identifies himself as Santosh Patil.
Then he illustrates how the government utilises agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Addressing the crowd, Gandhi asserts that Patil symbolises the common Indian while accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of diverting attention to issues such as foreign trips, Pakistan, and China. Gandhi alleges that Adani will exploit the man’s finances, then proceeds to request a stick from the crowd around the 11-minute and 13-second mark. At 11 minutes and 17 seconds, Gandhi instructs to remove the flag from the stick, omitting the context preceding this instruction in the viral claim. Although some Congress supporters struggled to comply, Gandhi eventually received a smaller stick from a member of the crowd. Following this, Gandhi suggests that Home Minister Amit Shah will employ the stick to unleash ED and CBI on government critics. The entire sequence of events unfolds in the live stream, spanning from the 10-minute and 11-second mark to the 11-minute and 42-second mark.
Thus, it is evident that the viral video has been edited and shared with misleading narratives.
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