2020 women’s long queue video is falsely linked to the Mahalakshmi scheme committed by Congress!
The viral video of women waiting outside the bank to get their money is from the Jan Dhan account in 2020 and has no links to the recent Congress Mahalakshmi Scheme
Claim
Family members of Akbar, Babar, and Aurangzeb are in the queue for getting ₹8500/month under Rahul Gandhi’s “Khatakhat Scheme”
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Explanation
In Uttar Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi made statements during the Lok Sabha 2024 campaign about his plans to implement programs for women’s financial aid and youth employment if he wins the election. During one such campaign, he continued to explain the party’s “Mahalakshmi Scheme” guarantee—which states that the party will provide Rs 8,500 per month to one woman in every impoverished household if it comes to power—while saying in Hindi, “Khata khat khat khat paise ayenge account mein” (money will come instantly to your account).
Here, a 1-minute, 6-second video depicts numerous women waiting on the road. Observing the lengthy line, one can see that the majority of the women were seated apart and covered in burqas. This post is shared with a claim stating, “Family members of Akbar, Babar, and Aurangzeb are in the queue for getting ₹8500/month under Rahul Gandhi’s “Khatakhat Scheme”
You can view similar claim posts here and here.
Family members of Akbar, Babar and Aurangzeb in queue for getting ₹8500/month under Rahul Gandhi’s “Khatakhat Scheme” pic.twitter.com/Wlg6a3dVce
— Bharatheeyam (Modi Ka Parivar) (@Bharatheeyam9) June 12, 2024
What’s the truth?
We began our study by searching Google for pertinent keywords and with the keyframes from the popular video. This directed us to an April 20, 2020, News 18 India YouTube video. This indicates that the video belongs to the COVID era.
With a duration of 41 seconds, the clip is uploaded online under the heading, “Video of the crowd outside a bank in Muzaffarnagar goes viral, a rumor of money being returned to accounts.” When we looked into the description box of the video, it read “Video of the crowd outside the bank in Muzaffarnagar goes viral: while making them follow social distancing, they were made to sit away and explained that money will not be withdrawn from anyone’s accounts.”
When we looked again, we discovered the exact same video that RB News, a YouTube channel, had posted on April 17, 2020. It was posted with the title, “There is a long line of Muslim women in Gandhi Colony in Muzaffarnagar… Know what is the reason…?”
Then, we searched through the description box and found that this video showed the Gandhi colony, not any Muslim neighborhood in Muzaffarnagar.
Moreover, it went on to add that, this huge queue is outside the Bank of Baroda on Pachentha Roth in Gandhi Colony. People are seen waiting in line to withdraw the Rs 500–500 that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has issued to their accounts.
We took this as a cue and searched further and found an article by News 18 from April 2020. The article says that “Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last month had announced that as many of 20.5 crore women Jan Dhan account holders will get Rs 500 per month for next three months.”
In April 2020, the Business Standard published a piece about the same occurrence, which you may read here.
All of this information makes it clear that contrary to what the viral claim implies, the clip is not new; rather, it is old and from the 2020 COVID timeframe.
Conclusion:
Therefore, we conclude that the widely shared video, which purports to show ladies queuing up for hours to receive 8500 Rupees through Rahul Gandhi’s initiative, is false and misleading.
This outdated video was shot in April 2020 when ladies were misled and thought that their Jan Dhan accounts would be emptied of their money if they didn’t withdraw it on time.
