Fact Check: Rahul Gandhi didn’t resign from Congress, social media video has AI-generated audio

A video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi filing his election nomination has been altered with an AI voice clone to falsely claim that he is resigning from the party. BOOM found that the claim is false; the original video shows him filing his nomination on 3 April for the Lok Sabha elections from Wayanad, Kerala. The general elections in India will be held in seven phases from 19 April to 1 June 2024 and the counting will take place on 4 June. Gandhi will be contesting from Wayanad against Communist Party of India’s (CPI) Annie Raja and state president of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Kerala unit, K Surendran.

In the viral video, Gandhi can be seen signing documents and reading out a short statement announcing his resignation in Hindi. The statement in English translates to, “I, Rahul Gandhi, am resigning from the Congress. I am tired of being a Hindu for the sake of elections. I did the anyay yatra and released the manifesto (nyay patra), but Modi keeps sending corrupt people to jail.” The voice clone video of Gandhi further adds, “Under his leadership, we will keep sending corrupt people to jail. That is why I am going to my grandfather’s house to Italy.”

X handle @MithilaWaala shared the video with the caption, “Don’t know whether this video is true or edited”

Fact check

BOOM found that the viral video has been overlaid with fake AI-generated voice clone of Rahul Gandhi. We ran a reverse image search on Google using some key frames from the viral video and found a post on X by media outlet The Hindu. The post, shared on 3 April 2024 matched the viral video and was shared with the caption, “Congress leader #RahulGandhi submitting nomination papers to #Wayanad district collector Renu Raj on Wednesday.”

Congress leader #RahulGandhi submitting nomination papers to #Wayanad district collector Renu Raj on Wednesday.

Video credit: Special arrangement pic.twitter.com/ANywIMcADQ

— The Hindu (@the_hindu) April 3, 2024

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Taking a cue from this caption, we ran a search for Rahul Gandhi filing his nomination at Wayanad and found a YouTube video shared by the verified handle of the Indian National Congress on 3 April. The video was titled ‘Rahul Gandhi files nomination from Wayanad’ (‘राहुल गांधी से वायनाड से भरा नामांकन’) In this video, Gandhi can be heard saying, “I, Rahul Gandhi, having been nominated as a candidate to fill a seat in the house of the people do solemnly affirm that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of India as by law established and that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of the country.”

In this original video, there is no statement by Gandhi announcing his resignation as claimed in the viral video. BOOM also ran the viral video through Itisaar, a deepfake analysis tool created by IIT Jodhpur and DigitID. This tool, too, estimated that the audio is fake.

This story was originally published by Boom, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline, excerpt, introduction paragraph, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.