Clipped video passed off as Union Minister Gadkari criticizing Modi government

What is the claim?

The Congress party's official X (formerly Twitter) account recently posted a video alleging that Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari, had criticized the BJP government. The video depicts Gadkari in an interview expressing concern over the state of villages, the poor, laborers, and farmers, citing the lack of infrastructure and basic amenities in rural areas. The post, translated from Hindi, suggests dissatisfaction with the current government's performance in these sectors.

The post, shared on March 1, quickly went viral, amassing over one million views and substantial engagement. It was shared with the caption: “Today, the villages, poor, laborers and farmers are unhappy. There are no good roads, no pure water to drink, no good hospitals or schools in the villages. - Modi government minister Nitin Gadkari (translated from Hindi).”

It was reshared across social media platforms by notable figures and the official account of the Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee. Archived versions of such posts can be accessed here, here and here.

Screenshots of the viral posts. (Source: X/Facebook/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the claim is misleading. A video of Nitin Gadkari discussing rural-urban migration was shared without context to claim that he was criticizing the Modi government. 

What did we find?

A reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video led us to the original version of the clip. The viral clip was extracted from a one-hour forty-two-minute long interview with Nitin Gadkari conducted by Saurabh Dwivedi from TheLallantop, uploaded by the media outlet on YouTube on February 29. The short clip was taken from the 18:19 to 18:38 time stamp of the YouTube video. 

In the conversation, Gadkari is seen discussing India's development and the contributions of various sectors, such as manufacturing and agriculture, to the GDP. He explains the shift in rural-urban migration patterns over the years since Mahatma Gandhi's era. According to him, the migration from rural to urban areas has been driven by the lack of sustainable development in rural regions compared to other sectors. However, the Union Minister also said that their government has undertaken significant efforts in this area since coming to power.

The selective clipping and dissemination of Nitin Gadkari's comments have led to a misinterpretation of his stance on the government's rural development policies. The extended version of the interview clarifies that Gadkari was discussing the historical and ongoing challenges in rural development, acknowledging the work done by the government rather than criticizing it.

His complete statement was, "In the country's development, our agricultural sector contributes only 12 percent to the GDP, while the manufacturing sector contributes 22 to 24 percent, and the service sector contributes 52 to 54 percent. Sixty-five percent of the population is dependent on agriculture. During Gandhiji's time, up to 90 percent of the population lived in villages. So, why did this 30 percent migration happen gradually? The reason is today's villages, the poor, laborers, and farmers are distressed. The economy of water, land, forests, and animals—which is rural, agricultural, and tribal—lacks good roads, clean drinking water, quality hospitals, and schools, and does not offer fair prices for the farmer's crops. Sustainable development has occurred, it's not that it hasn't. It has, but not to the extent seen in other sectors. After our government came to power, we have also undertaken a lot of work."

Furthermore, Nitin Gadkari's official X account shared a comparison between the edited video and the original video to clarify the context.

The verdict

A video of Nitin Gadkari discussing rural-urban migration was clipped and shared without context. The Union minister was not criticizing the Modi government as claimed, which is evident from the longer and unedited version. Therefore, we have marked this claim as misleading.