Did Narendra Modi in his interview say that Hindutva is just a card to play during elections? Know the truth.

Prior to regional elections scheduled this month, an old video of PM Modi has resurfaced on social media. In the interview PM Modi can be heard saying that Hindutva was never the motto of BJP. It is just a card to be played during elections. 

Users are claiming that Pm Modi had said that Hindu religion is just like playing cards which are used during elections. 

However, Fact Crescendo found the claim to be misleading. This is an old interview of PM Modi which was edited to defame BJP. 

Facebook | Archive

This video got viral after the Chief Spokesperson and General Secretary of INC Maharashtra, Atul Londhe Patil tweeted on 27 October 2023. 

Fact Check- 

A relevant keyword search on Google led us to the same video uploaded on Zee News in 2022. This is a flashback of PM Modi’s interview back in 1998. The description of the video reads that this is a 24-year-old interview of Narendra Modi. 

In this interview, we can see people asking him questions about BJP’s political ideology, manifesto etc. Modi can also be heard about the polarization and coalition of political parties. He also gave clarification about BJP’s relation with RSS and the role of later in forming the government. 

In this video, the viral clip can be seen after 10.35 minutes. The interviewer asked Narendra Modi, “Narendra Modi ji, your party had Hindutva slogan which enabled you to move from winning 2 seats in 1984 to becoming eligible to form a government in 1998. But now this Hindutva slogan has also failed. Now in this election the party has slogans of Vande Mataram and Saraswati Vandana. But people understood that these are all sentimental issues picked up by the party to win votes at the time of elections.”

To this Narendra Modi replied, “Hindutva had never been the slogan of BJP during elections. Hindutva is an article of faith for us. This is not a card to play during elections. This had never been an issue. Many governments had formed which started with Saraswati Vandana but now they indulge in Sonia Vandana and forget Saraswati Vandana.”

Below you can see the interview of Narendra Modi with Zee News. 

From the above video it is clear that Narendra Modi did not say that Hindutva is a card to play at the time of elections. The video has been altered. The word ‘is not’ has been removed from the original video. 

Below you can see the comparison between the viral video and the real video. 

Conclusion: 

Fact Crescendo found the original video was altered and shared as Narendra Modi saying that Hindutva is just a card to win votes for BJP during elections. In the original video, he clearly said that Hindutva is not a card for BJP.