Haryana CM Khattar targets Rahul Gandhi using “52 children a year” clipped video

On April 28, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar addressed an election rally in Ratia in the state. During his speech, the CM spoke about a purported video of Rahul Gandhi which was “too difficult to even talk about”. Khattar alleged that the Congress president “insulted the honour of our mothers and sisters”. He cited a video where he claimed Gandhi said that women in Uttar Pradesh can give birth to one child a week or 52 children a year.

Given below is the verbatim of Khattar’s speech –

“अभी तीन दिन पहले एक ऐसी वीडियो देखी मैंने, मैं हैरान भी हुआ, दुख भी हुआ। कभी लगता है मुझे अपने मुँह से वो बोलना नहीं चाहिए। उदाहरण देना भी बड़ा कष्टदायक लग रहा है, हमारी माताओ और बहनों की उसमे इज़्ज़त बेइज़्ज़ती का सवाल भी है। उत्तर प्रदेश में जा करके भाषण दिया राहुल गाँधी ने। हो सकता है सोशल मीडिया के ऊपर हमारे कुछ मित्रों ने देखा भी होगा। बावन वाला किस किस ने देखा है? इतने सारे लोगो ने देखा है। शर्म आनी चाहिए उसको ऐसा वक्तव देते हुए। कहता है उत्तर प्रदेश की महिलाओँ में बड़ा पराक्रम है, बड़ी ताकतवर है, बड़ी रिकॉर्ड बनाने वाली महिलाएं है। और कहता है यहाँ हर महिला हफ्ते में एक एक बच्चे को जन्म दे सकती है, साल में बावन बच्चों को जन्म दे सकती है। ये बेहूदा वक्तव है हमारे देश का, जिसको कांग्रेस पार्टी अपने प्रधानमंत्री का नेता कहती है? (Just three days ago, I saw a video which shocked me and also made me very upset. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t utter those words from my mouth. Even giving this as an example is painful because it insults the reputation of our mothers and sisters. Rahul Gandhi went to Uttar Pradesh to give a speech. Maybe some of our friends on social media have already seen it. How many of you have watched the ’52’ video? So many people have seen it. He should feel shameful for giving such a statement. He said women in Uttar Pradesh have a lot of strength, they are powerful, record-breaking women. He said women here can give birth to one child a week or 52 children in a year. This man who gave such a disgusting statement is being pitched by the Congress party as the prime minister?)”

Haryana CM quotes fake news

The video referred to by Manohar Lal Khattar was recently debunked by Alt News when BJP MP RK Sinha shared it on Twitter. A 7-year-old speech of Rahul Gandhi in UP’s Phulpur was lifted, clipped and circulated on social media.

In the original speech, Rahul Gandhi talks about Janani Suraksha Yojna under the National Rural Health Mission, where pregnant women get an incentive of Rs 1,400 for institutional delivery. In that context, the Congress president claimed that according to an RTI response, women with the same name were getting incentives every week due to corruption in the scheme. He can be heard making the statement at 5:25 minutes in the video posted below.

His exact words were – “हमने RTI मंगा, RTI में जो हमे रिपोर्ट मिली, यूपी में ऐसी महिलाएं है जो हर सप्ता एक बच्चा पैदा कर सकती है। ऐसी महिलाएं है जो साल में ५२ बच्चे दे रही है। एक ही नाम, १४०० रुपये हर सप्ताह उसके जेब में। और एक ही एक महिला नहीं, हज़ारो महिलाएं है। (We filed an RTI, according to the RTI response, UP has such women who are giving birth to a child every week, there are such women who are giving birth to 52 children per year, all have one name, 1400 rupees in their pocket every week, and there are thousands of such women.)

The part where Gandhi mentioned the RTI reply was conveniently clipped from the original video to circulate it with a false narrative.

A piece of misinformation, despite being debunked in the past, found a place in an incumbent chief minister’s election speech.