Hyderabad: A month before the Lok Sabha elections, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal was arrested by the ED on 21 March on corruption charges in the excise policy case. He has been remanded to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate till 28 March by a court in New Delhi.
Now, a video of Kejriwal allegedly saying, “First we exploit poor people and then we make generous donations” is viral on social media. The text accompanying the video claims that the said video is “enough to expose his reality.”
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the video is clipped and is being shared with missing context. Upon a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found the extended version of the video on X, shared by a user on 24 March, 2024.
The user stated in the caption that the video is from the initial days of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). He also quoted Kejriwal saying, “So what if changing the system is a big task, someone has to do it?” The video shows Kejriwal in conversation with a man who says changing the system is an uphill process. Kejriwal disagrees with him and says there should not be a situation where you first exploit poor people and then help them. He advocates changing the system by empowering people and disagrees with helping people through charity.
A video from the initial days of AAP.
“System badalna lamba kaam hai toh kya hua? Kisi ko toh karna padega” – @ArvindKejriwal pic.twitter.com/79b9KGX4qS
— Abhijeet Dipke (@abhijeet_dipke) March 23, 2024
It is clear from this video (Archive) that the viral clip does not show the full context.
We also found the viral clip in a video published on Kunal Kamra’s YouTube channel on 26 August, 2020, titled ‘An Insignificant Man 2018.’
The viral clip appears in this video after an 8:49-minute timestamp. It shows the man in the viral clip saying to Kejriwal that they help 1,001 girls from poor families get married, every year. Responding to him, Kejriwal could be heard saying there should not be a situation where you first exploit people and then help them. Rather, he advocates empowering people by increasing their income.
According to IMDb, An Insignificant Man is a non-fiction political drama, which chronicles the political debut of Kejriwal and the insurgence of his party in the Indian political sphere.
Hence, we conclude that the clipped video of Kejriwal is being shared with a missing context to mislead people.
This story was originally published by NewsMeter, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline, excerpt and introduction para, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.