A post is being shared on social media, which contains a video clip of Rahul Gandhi saying, “We are not fighting against the government; we are fighting against the entire infrastructure of India.” It also states that this is why Rahul Gandhi is called Pappu. Let’s fact-check the claim.
Claim: Rahul Gandhi says, “We are not fighting against the government; we are fighting against the whole Infrastructure of India.”
Fact: This statement was made by Rahul Gandhi at a recent press conference. Responding to a question, he said that opposition in democracy fights the ruling party with the support of various institutions like the judiciary, electoral structure, media, etc. He said that the country’s institutions support the ruling government since each of those contains at least one person from the RSS. He went onto say that they (the opposition) are not fighting a political party but the whole infrastructure. This was in the context of the institutions. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
After searching the internet with relevant keywords, we found videos and reports of Rahul Gandhi’s press conference, which was held on 05 August 2022. After going through the video streamed on India Today, we found he makes the same statement as in the viral post at 12:18 sec. He says, “We are not fighting against a political party; we are fighting against the entire infrastructure of India.” But this is just a part of his answer to a question which he starts from 11:18 sec.
He says that opposition in democracy fights the ruling party with the support of various institutions like the judiciary, electoral structure, media etc. But the country’s institutions support the ruling government since each of them contains at least one person from the RSS. He went onto say that they (the opposition) are not fighting a political party but the entire infrastructure.
The Quint and The Indian Express have also written about this in their reports. Other news reports about this press conference can be read here and here. From this, it is evident that a statement made by him in the context of institutions in the country is trimmed and shared with a misleading narrative.
To summarise, clipped video of Rahul Gandhi’s statements on fighting against the infrastructure of the country is shared out of context.
