A video of prime minster Narendra Modi giving a public speech is being shared on social media with the claim he was against EVM (Electronic Voting Machines) when he was in opposition.
An X account of Madhya Pradesh’s Youth Congress, sharing the video of PM Modi’s speech, captioned it, “मोदी जी का EVM के विरोध का पुराना वीडियो, बड़ी मुश्किल से मिला! (Old video of Modiji opposing usage of EVMs found with great difficulty!)”
In the video, Modi could be heard allegedly saying, “Brothers and sisters, even the educated nations of the world, including America, use ballot paper during elections even today. (Translated from Hindi)”
SouthCheck found that the video has been edited to make it look like PM Modi is against EVMs.
On doing a Google Reverse Image Search with a keyframe, we found the full version of the same video uploaded on the official YouTube channel of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The video was shared on December 3, 2016, with the caption, “Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s Speech at Parivartan Rally in New Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh.”
In the original video, at around the 37:32 timestamp, the snippet used in the viral video is seen. In the full section of the speech, which was edited out from the viral video, PM Modi could be heard saying in Hindi, “Some claim that our nation is poor and illiterate and our people are not aware of anything. However, my brothers and sisters, even in highly educated nations like America, voters still read names and stamp ballots during elections. But people press buttons and cast votes here in India, a country that you call poor and uneducated.”
An extended version of the same video was also uploaded to Narendra Modi’s YouTube channel. In this video, at the 55:12 timestamp, one can hear him making the same remarks as above.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power in 2014 for the first time under PM Modi's leadership. Thus, the video does not show him being in opposition. Moreover, in the original video, he did not say anything against the EVMs.
Hence, we can conclude that an edited video of his speech is being circulated with the claim that PM Modi was against EVMs.