Fact Check: Viral video of Rahul Gandhi inaccurately adding 50 and 15 to 73 is edited

Hyderabad: A video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi doing miscalculation has gone viral on social media. He could be seen saying 50 and 15 adds up to 73.

Gandhi is currently spearheading the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, which started on January 14 from Manipur and will end in Mumbai on March 20. It will cover 6,200 kilometres across 14 states. The video is reportedly from his yatra.

“Comedy should not stop...50 + 15 = 73 Great Mathematician Rahul Gandhi, (sic)” wrote an X user who shared the video.

Several others have also shared the video. Click here and here to view the archived posts.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the viral video was edited to make it look like Rahul Gandhi made a wrong calculation.

We ran a keyword search on X and came across a collage of edited and original videos posted by Nitin Agarwal, the National Coordinator of the Congress party’s Social Media & Digital Communications.

The original version shows Gandhi saying, “It is being said that the population of backward caste people is around 50 to 55 per cent, Dalits are 15 per cent, and Adivasis (tribals) are eight per cent. How many are there? How much do 50, 15 and 8 add up? Seventy-three.”

While sharing the collage, Agarwal accused the followers of the BJP of editing the viral clip, which shows Rahul Gandhi adding up fifty and fifteen to seventy-three.

Next, we found a 3:57-minute video of Rahul Gandhi posted by the official X handle of the Congress party on February 8.

The caption said, “A journalist asked me, ‘Rahul ji, you are talking about caste census and rights, so is this not dividing the country?’ I asked him in response, ‘In the media, how many newspaper owners are from backward, Dalit, tribal classes?’ He became silent. I said there are about 50 OBCs, 15 per cent Dalits and 8 per cent tribals in the country. This total was 73 per cent. That means you are not giving anything to 73 per cent of people. Then how can India be united?”

The viral clip appears in this video at around 2:40 minutes. It shows Rahul Gandhi adding up 50 per cent of OBCs, 15 per cent of Dalits and eight per cent of tribals to 73 per cent.

Target of misinformation brigade

Rahul Gandhi has been targetted by his political opponents who would share doctored videos of him claiming to spread his ‘goof-ups.’

In September 2022, a video of him using ‘litre’ as the unit of measurement instead of ‘kg’ when talking about the price of wheat flour (atta) went viral. NewsMeter found that the video was clipped. Although Gandhi had said ‘litre’ he immediately corrected the unit from litre to kg. The corrected portion was removed in the viral video.

Similarly, another video went viral in November 2022, which showed Gandhi saying he has nothing to do with truth, he only wants power. However, NewsMeter found that the video was also edited. The unclipped version showed Gandhi making the statement referring to the BJP and not about himself.

Hence, we conclude that the viral video of Rahul Gandhi adding 50 and 15 inaccurately is edited.