The viral clip is edited. Rahul Gandhi was not present in Parliament when BJP’s Anurag Thakur questioned the Opposition about the Indian Constitution.
What is the claim?
A viral video on social media purportedly depicts Anurag Thakur, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament (MP) from Himachal Pradesh, stumping Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition, with a question about the Constitution.
In the video, Thakur challenges: “How many pages are in the Constitution? Don’t estimate—give me the exact number. You carry it daily, but do you ever read it? Or do you just wave it around? Take it out now (translated from Hindi).” The clip then cuts to Gandhi and other leaders standing in the Opposition benches.
A user on X (formerly Twitter) shared this video with the caption: “Rahul Gandhi could not say how many pages are in the Constitution… This is called answering Rahul Baba in his own language… Anurag Thakur (sic).” This post (archived here) has garnered over 237,000 views. Archived versions of similar posts can be found here, here, and here.
However, our investigation reveals that the viral video is edited. Gandhi was not present during Thakur’s remarks about the Constitution.
What we found
We analyzed the full video of Thakur’s speech during the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address in the Lok Sabha on July 1, 2024, available on Sansad TV’s YouTube channel (archived here). The segment in question occurs at 56:46, where Thakur queries opposition MPs about the Constitution’s length.
Thakur asks (translated from Hindi), “Let me pose a question to all of you: how many pages comprise our Constitution? You carry it daily—perhaps it’s time you opened and read it.”
When Thakur poses this question, the camera pans to the Opposition benches, but Gandhi is notably absent.
At the beginning of the session, when Thakur stood up to start his speech, Gandhi was present in Lok Sabha. At the 25-second mark, Gandhi can be seen standing up and suggesting to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that after the President’s address, a day should be fixed for discussion on the NEET exam.
After this, Thakur begins his speech, and at the 3:16 minute mark in the video, the Opposition MPs can be seen walking out of Parliament. Later, while some opposition MPs return to the House during Thakur’s speech, the video does not show Gandhi in the Lok Sabha. When Thakur remarks about the pages of the Constitution, Gandhi is still absent from the House.
As the Leader of Opposition, Gandhi gets a designated seat in the first row, to the left of the Speaker. However, during Thakur’s remarks, that seat is empty.
What about Gandhi’s clip in the viral video?
We also conducted a reverse image search of the frames featuring Gandhi in the viral video and found that those clips are from a different speech he gave on July 1, 2024. Gandhi’s remarks are also available on SansadTV’s YouTube channel (archived here), where the exact portion edited into the viral clip can be seen at the 19:03-19:08 mark.
This evidence clearly shows that a small part of Gandhi’s speech has been added to the clip featuring Thakur’s remarks to create this false claim.
The verdict
Our investigation confirms that the viral video has been edited. Rahul Gandhi was not present during Anurag Thakur’s remarks about the Constitution in Parliament.
(This report first appeared on logicallyfacts.com, and has been republished on ABP Live as part of a special arrangement. ABP Live has edited the headline and feature image of the report while republishing)
