Rahul Gandhi did not say that youth will be paid 8.5K per month for watching social media.
Claim
Accounts of common youth doing a tedious job of watching Instagram and Facebook 24×7 will automatically get Rs 8500 monthly credited to their bank account….Takatak … Takatak.
Rating
Explanation
As the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections commenced, we see the leaders of both the parties actively campaigning in every Indian state.
Here we have a 16-second viral video featuring Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Congress, speaking into a microphone in front of the general public. He says in Hindi, “Our youngsters, who are now strolling in the streets… surfing Instagram, Facebook… our government will credit their bank accounts with an annual amount of Rs 1 lakh and a monthly income of Rs 8500, Takatak, takatak…..”
This post is shared with a claim stating “Accounts of common youth doing a tedious job of watching Instagram and Facebook 24×7 will automatically get Rs 8500 monthly credited to their bank account.” You can view similar claim posts here, here, and here.
Accounts of common youth who are doing tedious job of watching Instagram and Facebook 24×7 will automatically get Rs 8500 credited every month to their bank account….Takatak … Takatak.
This is his plan for prosperous India. #WealthRedistributionPlan pic.twitter.com/WMUfkqO3Ty
— Frontalforce (@FrontalForce) April 22, 2024
What’s the truth?
We started our analysis with the keyframes of the viral video along with the pertinent keywords on the internet. This led us to the YouTube channel of Rahul Gandhi where the video live-streamed on April 20, 2024.
The video is lengthy with a timeline of 22 minutes and 21 seconds which is titled, “Lok Sabha 2024 Campaign | Public Meeting | Bhagalpur, Bihar.”
When we listened to the whole video we learned that around the timestamp of the 10:17 minute mark, Rahul Gandhi says, “Here, the children of the rich have a process to enter the job market easily. Initially, they get an apprenticeship for a year, then a temporary job, get trained and they get a salary. But India’s unemployed youth or poor don’t get this opportunity. Apprenticeship can be done by the rich people’s children but not by the unemployed youth of India.”
Gandhi then explains about the apprenticeship scheme. “So our second scheme, which we have termed as, ‘First Assured Job’ (Pehli Naukri Pakki). Now let me brief about Pehli Naukri Pakki.” Gandhi then adds, “We are going to give all graduates and diploma holders in India the right to apprenticeship. Keep clapping more. I will explain it now, and then you see.
Around the timeline of 11:27, we can hear him saying, “The right to apprenticeship means that our next government will grant every youth in India the opportunity of their first job. Similar to how MNREGA has rights to earn, we will give the same right to graduates for their first job.”
Rahul further says, “The right to the first job means that all graduates and diploma holders will receive a one-year apprenticeship, with Rs 1,00,000 annually deposited into their bank accounts, which is Rs 8,500 per month. They will get trained and if they do well in their first year, they will get a permanent job. These apprenticeship jobs will be available in the private sector, public sector units, and government sectors. This way, crores of young people will receive training, and India will get a trained workforce. Our youth, who are now wandering around the streets and browsing Instagram and Facebook, will have Rs 1,00,000 per year (Rs 8500 per month) sent directly to their bank accounts by our government.”
The above information makes it clear that the viral video has been cropped and shared on social media with misleading narratives.
Conclusion:
Thus, we conclude that the widely circulated video purporting to show Rahul Gandhi saying that young people who use Facebook and Instagram continuously will automatically receive a monthly credit of Rs. 8,500 to their bank accounts is false and deceptive.
The viral video is a clipped and cropped section that has been shared with narratives that are taken out of context.
