Fact Check: Rahul Gandhi blames ‘vote chori’ for Delhi pollution? Video shared by BJP is missing context

Hyderabad: On December 14, the Congress party organised ‘Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhod’ rally at the Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi.

Party leaders, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, criticised the BJP and the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging vote theft in elections.

Meanwhile, a clip of Rahul Gandhi giving a public speech during the rally has been circulating on social media. In the video, he allegedly said that pollution in Delhi is due to vote theft.

“Look at this pollution... all of this is happening because they are stealing votes,” he could be heard saying in the video.

Taking a jibe at the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the official X handle of the BJP shared the video with the caption, “Pollution is happening only because of vote stealing! RaGa at his absolute best.” (Archive)

Several X handles shared the video, mocking the Congress leader. The posts can be seen here, here, here and here.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading, as the video is clipped and does not show the complete context.

What did Congress leaders speak about during the rally?

We searched for the video of the Congress rally and found over two hours of video of the programme live-streamed on the official YouTube channel of Rahul Gandhi on December 14, titled ‘Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhod Maha Rally | Ramlila Maidan, Delhi.’

Several Congress leaders spoke during the rally, targeting the BJP and the Election Commission, with Priyanka Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge being the last speakers.

Kharge, targeting the BJP and RSS, alleged that they are trying to finish off the Constitution. He also said that in the name of Hindutva, the BJP-RSS people want to enslave the poor again.

Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi warned the election commissioners, Gyanesh Kumar (CEC), Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, of a ‘retroactive law’ and action when the Congress comes to power.

Targeting the Election Commission of India, Rahul said in the ‘fight between truth and lies’, the Election Commission of India is standing with ‘lies’, and the three poll body officers should remember that they are Election Commissioners of India and not of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Did Rahul really blame ‘vote chori’ for Delhi pollution?

Upon viewing the entire video, we found that Rahul blamed the BJP for a host of issues in the country, including pollution in Delhi. However, the clip only mentioned vote theft and pollution, making it look like Rahul was connecting them illogically.

To elaborate, after one hour and thirty-nine minutes into the video, Rahul Gandhi could be heard saying during his speech, “They (BJP) run this government by stealing votes, they have destroyed small traders, implemented wrong GST, did demonetisation, caused unemployment, look at this pollution... all of this is happening because they are stealing votes, because if they were not stealing votes then you (public) would remove them from the government in five minutes.”

It is clear from this excerpt that the viral clip is missing context.

Rahul Gandhi is not claiming that vote-stealing directly causes pollution. His complete argument is that because the BJP allegedly engages in vote theft to gain power, and because they are in power, they have implemented policies that caused problems like pollution, unemployment and the destruction of small traders, etc.

Therefore, we conclude that the viral clip shared by the BJP X handle and people associated with the BJP is misleading, as it does not show the complete context.