By Prantik Ali

A short clip has gone viral on social media with the claim that Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge criticized Congress for dividing the country on the basis of caste. In this 7-second clip, Kharge can be seen declaring, presumably in a public speech, that Congress is always trying to divide the country based on caste.

A verified X (formerly Twitter) user posted the viral clip with a caption in Hindi that can be roughly translated as – ‘Kharge Sahab is also saying that Congress is dividing the country in the name of caste.’ (Archive)

https://twitter.com/HimantaBiswa_S/status/1765680489678139558?t=24esgskJ188xLfbncXQZQA&s=19

Another user posted on Facebook with a similar claim that the Congress President had inadvertently condemned his own party. (Archive)

Fact Check

Alt News ran a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the viral video, and came across this YouTube video posted by the news channel, Times Bharat, on February 16, 2024. The caption indicates that the speech is from a Congress rally held at Aurangabad, Bihar, as a part of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, in February 2024.

We ran a relevant keyword search on Google and came across this video uploaded by the official channel of Congress on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/bOaFH41I4TM?si=lnWRdSs7GrNYWoJk

In the full speech, Kharge speaks about the party’s commitment to conducting socio-economic caste surveys in order to assess the progress of various communities in India since its independence.

At the 13:11 mark, Kharge can be heard exclaiming ‘Modi says that the Congress Party is always trying to divide the country on the basis of caste differences…What are we doing? All we are trying to do is provide justice to the people’ (Translation from Hindi). It is thus evident that he attributes the comment from the viral clip to Prime Minister Modi, criticizing him for not supporting the move for the caste survey.

Read Full Story https://www.altnews.in/no-mallikarjun-kharge-did-not-say-congress-had-divided-india-on-caste/