Social media users are sharing an image with some text claiming it as RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s comments on Rahul Gandhi. The text in Hindi translates to, ‘Rahul Gandhi is the leader of the future. Taking him lightly will be costly. His family’s history shows that it would not be right to take Rahul Gandhi lightly.’ This claim has multiple posts (here and here) on social media. Let’s verify the claim made in these posts through this article.
Claim: Mohan Bhagwat said Rahul Gandhi is the future leader, and he should not be taken lightly.
Fact: Mohan Bhagwat, being the chief of RSS, any comment/statement made by him would generally get the attention of the media. We found no relevant news reports to prove that he made the statement about Rahul Gandhi that is being attributed to him. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We searched the internet for news reports about RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent comments on Rahul Gandhi with relevant keywords, and did not find any credible sources that support this claim. Further, we looked for relevant tweets on the official Twitter handles of RSS and Mohan Bhagwat, only to see that they haven’t tweeted anything which supports the viral post’s claim.
Reverse image search of the Mohan Bhagwat’s photo from the viral post led to a Times of India article with the same image of him captured during ‘The Future of Bharat: An RSS Perspective’ event. According to the 2018 Times of India report, Mohan Bhagwat said, ‘Congress played an important role in India’s freedom struggle’. However, Mohan Bhagwat has not made any statements about Rahul Gandhi during this event. The full speech of the event can be seen here. With this evidence, we can conclude that the viral post falsely quotes Mohan Bhagwat as the one who made the statements in the post.
To sum up, this purported statement of the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Rahul Gandhi is fake.
