On 9 May 2020, BJP’s official spokesperson Sambit Patra posted a tweet trolling Rahul Gandhi. He added a 7-second video clip with the tweet in which Mr. Gandhi can be heard saying, “Jo Red hai wi Green hai, jo green hai wo red (The red zone is actually the green zone and the green zone is actually the red zone)”. Mr. Patra’s reference to Rahul Gandhi’s old misleading and false viral clip, “Piche se Aloo Agey se Sona”. We have received requests from many Facto News readers for checking the authenticity of the video shared.
पीछे से आलू आगे से सोना
— Sambit Patra (@sambitswaraj) May 9, 2020
और अब
जो RED है वो GREEN है
जो GREEN है वो RED है
ये क्या है 😎 pic.twitter.com/mrHFHh8Wl2
Archive here
FactO Check
Claim 1: “Jo Red hai wi Green hai, jo green hai wo red”
Rahul Gandhi held an hour-long press briefing on Zoom on May 7 with journalists, to talk about suggestions on Covid-19. In reply to a question about decentralization by the journalist from PTI, Mr. Gandhi went on talking about the different types of zones set up by the central government. He suggested that the zones should be classified on the intensity of the outbreak and on the information provided by the state authorities. He also said that the Red, Orange, Green zones were made based on national-level information, but should be based on the information from Chief Ministers and DMs of respective states. At 20:04, Mr. Gandhi was referencing to the information that the state Chief Ministers had on zones and said, “Jo Red hai wo Green hai, jo green hai wo red”.
Claim 2: “पीछे से आलू आगे से सोना” (Insert potato from one side and get Gold from another side)
Amit Malviya, BJP IT cell head(at that time) shared a clipped video of the speech in his Twitter account trying to mislead people. Sambit Patra retweeted Mr. Malviya’s tweet mocking Rahul Gandhi’s statement. Many prominent news channels and fact check websites have already debunked this fake claim on multiple occasions.
FactO Check
In 2017, Rahul Gandhi was addressing a rally in Patan, Gujarat. At one part in his speech, Rahul Gandhi was referencing to PM Narendra Modi’s promise to the farmers and said (17:44),”कुछ महीने पहले यहाँ बाढ़ आयी ५०० करोड़ रुपये दूंगा, (पीएम मोदी ने) एक भी रूपया नहीं दिया. आलू के किसानो को कहा ऐसी मशीन लगाऊंगा इस साइड से आलू घुसेगा उस साइड से सोना निकलेगा…मेरे शब्द नहीं है नरेंद्र मोदीजी के शब्द है, (Few months back Mr. Narendra Modi has promised farmers that he will give 500 crores for flood relief and said he will install such a machine that when you put potato from behind, gold will come out)”.