A 16-second video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone viral on social media. In the video, he is giving a speech and can be heard saying, “Today the entire country is saying that if my mother had stopped me in my childhood, then I would not have become such a big robber.” (Translated from Hindi)
The social media users are sharing the video mocking the PM for calling himself a robber.
A social media user shared the video with a sarcastic caption: “Today the entire country is saying in one voice”
On a Google reverse image search, we found that the first clip was shared by The Tribune on March 4, 2024. The video was shared with a caption that reads, “PM Modi attends a public meeting in Adilabad, Telangana.”
In the video, at around the 23:52-minute timestamp, we can hear PM Modi saying, “This is why today the entire nation is saying that I am a member of the Modi family.”
Right before the clip, PM Modi is heard saying that "140 crore citizens are my family, these youth are my family. Today, this country's mother and sisters, they are my family. Today all the poor of my nation, they are my family. Today, the elderlies and children they are my family. Whoever does not have a family, he is a family of PM Modi and my nation is my family." He then takes a pause to drink water and later says, "This is why everyone in the country is now saying..."
Second clip
On a Google reverse image search, we found the extended version of the same video shared by the official YouTube channel of PM Modi on April 10, 2021.
The video was shared with the caption that reads, “Addressing a massive rally ahead of the fourth phase of the election in West Bengal’s Siliguri, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said, ‘The entire North Bengal has announced that TMC government is going and BJP government is coming. Today, the entire nation is proud to see the willpower of the people of Bengal. This willpower is of the ‘Ashol Poriborton’. This willpower is the power of ‘Sonar Bangla’.”
The video is around 5 minutes long. At around the 4:09-minute timestamp, we can hear PM Modi saying, “If my mother had stopped me from doing petty theft, then I would not have been such a big robber.”
However, he was only narrating the story of a bandit during his speech, whose statement he referred to in the viral clip.
In the story, PM Modi said, “There was a bandit who had been sentenced to death. When asked about his last wish, he expressed the desire to meet his mother one final time. When he met her, he cut off her nose. People asked him why he did that, and he replied, ‘When I used to steal small things as a child, if my mother had stopped me back then, I would not have become such a big dacoit today.’”
The video was also shared by the BJP West Bengal on April 10, 2021.
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral claim is false.