At a Press conference, Raghav Chadha, a Chartered Accountant (CA) by profession and Rajya Sabha MP of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) quoted, “The total population of Gujarat is 6.5 crores, so if you see that the debt on Gujarat is 3.5 lakh crores, while the total population is only 6.5 crores i.e. per capita debt, is around 58 thousand crores to all of you. The Gujarat government has raised a loan of 58 thousand crores on the heads of all Gujaratis.” {English Tranlation}
Sonn a clip of his statement got viral on social media platforms. A Twitter user Kanchan Patel captioned this video of Chadha, “AAP MP Raghav Chadha says that every Gujarati has a debt of ₹58000 Crore. He also said that if a new baby is born in Gujarat, he is borns with a debt of ₹58000Crore.”
Another user Bhartiya wrote, Raghav Chaddha is a CA ( no comments on how he cleared it ). Was it a slip of the tongue when he said newborns in Gujrat hv a debt of 58K cr debts on them? No, he is not dat dumb. The problem wid him is he thinks all Gujrati r fools. हर गुजराती ऐसों को दिन में 70 बार बेच देता है.”
Similarly, there are many other social media users who have shared the video of AAP MP.
Fact Check:
To know the veracity of Chadha’s statement, the DFRAC team converted the viral video into some key-frames and did a reverse image search. We found this video on the website lokmatnews.in. Lokmat uploaded this 9:27 minute video on its official YouTube channel under the caption, “Gujarat me Raghav Chadha said – State is in debt under BJP rule”. The viral video clip in this video can be seen at around 8:00 minutes.
Several users have reacted to the AAP leader’s claim that every Gujarati has a loan of Rs 58000 crore. The DFRAC team found that according to the AAP leader, if the total population of Gujarat is 6.5 crore and the total debt of Gujarat is Rs 3.5 lakh crore, then the loan per Gujarati would be about 54 thousand. However, in other press conferences, he has given a loan statement of 56 thousand per Gujarati.
Giving a full account, a user wrote while taking a jibe at Chadha, “…are you a CA or a peon?”
conclusion:
It is clear from this fact check of DFRAC that the data/claim given by AAP MP Raghav Chadha regarding the loan of Gujarat is misleading.
