A video of Rahul Gandhi is being circulated, claiming he promised ₹1 lakh per month to poor women if Congress comes to power (here & here). His Hindi statements in the video can be loosely translated as, “This is called development. One lakh rupee every month in the bank account of India’s poorest woman.” In this article, we fact-check the claim associated with the shared video.
Claim: Video of Rahul Gandhi promising ₹1 lakh per month to poor women if Congress comes to power.
Fact: Rahul Gandhi pledged ₹8,500 per month for economically weaker women. He mentioned a total of one lakh, summing up each month’s installment. The viral clip is incomplete, leading to misinterpretation. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Rahul Gandhi’s statements in the viral video are indeed his own. However, this excerpt is incomplete, leading to a misinterpretation. A YouTube search with relevant keywords provided the full footage of Rahul Gandhi’s speech, from which the viral excerpt was taken.
The viral clip is from Rahul Gandhi’s election campaign in Balangir, Odisha, on 15 May 2024. The Indian National Congress’s official YouTube channel livestreamed this public meeting. In his speech, Rahul Gandhi assured women from poor families that if Congress is voted into power, it will create crores of lakhpatis. He explained that a list of the poor, Dalits, tribals, and farmers would be made, and one woman from each household would receive ₹8,500 per month, totalling ₹1 lakh annually.
At the 28:30 timestamp of this video, citing an example of a woman present at the rally, Gandhi stated, “On 04 July, millions of women like Sushmita Sahu in Odisha, UP, Tamil Nadu, and every state in India will wake up and check their bank accounts. On 04 July, they will discover that one month’s instalment of ₹8,500 has been deposited into their bank accounts.”
Additionally, he stated that the same amount would be transferred every month, resulting in a total of one lakh being provided to women like Sahu over the course of a year. “One lakh rupees will be deposited into the bank accounts of India’s economically weaker women every month,” he affirmed.
This shows that Rahul Gandhi mentioned ‘One lakh’ while explaining the total sum of each month’s instalment. News reports also covered Gandhi’s electoral pledge to provide ₹8,500 per month for women. He consistently reiterated this promise throughout his campaign (here, here & here). Furthermore, this confirms that Gandhi’s speech has been truncated and removed from its context.
To sum up, Rahul Gandhi did not pledge ₹1 lakh every month to women. The viral video depicts an incomplete portion of his speech.
