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A video of Indian opposition politician Rahul Gandhi purportedly showing him opposing waiving loans for farmers has circulated online amid protests against new agricultural laws. The claim is false; the video has been edited from a longer speech from May 2018, in which he criticised the Indian government for refusing to waive farmers’ loans. The 10-second clip was shared here in a Facebook post on January 21, 2021. Screenshot of misleading Facebook post The whole world is one side, but this lord is on the other side. Farm loans should not be waived because it will spoil farmers’ habit, the Hindi-language caption reads. In the video, Rahul Gandhi , former president of India’s main opposition Indian National Congress (INC) party can be heard saying in Hindi: Farm loans should not be waived because it will spoil farmers’ habits. The video circulated online as Indian farmers continued to protest against new agriculture laws introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The clip was also shared alongside an identical claim on Facebook here , here and here ; and on Twitter here , here and here . However, the claim is misleading. A reverse image search of keyframes extracted from the video found Gandhi’s full speech was streamed live here on the official YouTube channel for the Congress party on May 17, 2018. Congress President Rahul Gandhi addresses Kisan-Adivasi Rally at Bilaspur, the video’s description reads. Bilaspur is a city in the central Indian state of Chattisgarh. Kisan and Adiwasi are Hindi words referring to farmers and tribal people. The government waived 2.5 lakh crore rupees of debt of the top fifteen industrialists, but the same government cannot waive a single rupee for the crores of farmers. Their leaders say that farmers’ loans shouldn’t be waived because it will spoil their habit, he says from the 28:20 mark. Videos of Gandhi's full speech were also posted here on an Indian video-sharing site on May 18, 2018. The same rally was referenced in this report by India Today on May 19, 2018.
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