Kanhaiya Kumar Criticising Rahul Gandhi? Here’s The Truth.

On 9 July 2025, during the INDIA bloc’s Bihar Bandh protests, Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar and Purnia MP Pappu Yadav were stopped from boarding an open van where Rahul Gandhi, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, and other politicians boarded. Against this backdrop, a video of Kanhaiya Kumar talking about democracy went viral on social media. In the video, Kanhaiya Kumar can be heard speaking in Hindi, ” Raja Ka Beta Raja Nahi Banega, Loktantra Mein Vote Se Tai Hoga Ki Humara Shashak Kaun Banega Aur Yah Jo Loktantra Hain, Loktantra Hi Bharat Ki Buniyad Hain (The son of King will not become a king. This is democracy. In a democracy, votes will decide who will become our ruler and this democracy is the foundation of India.)”. Sharing the video, social media users claim that Kanhaiya Kumar criticised Rahul Gandhi in this speech after the Bharat Bandh protests incident on 9 July.

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However, as we investigated, we came to know that the claim was false. The video is old and unrelated to the Bharat Bandh Protests on 9 July 2025. Here’s the fact check.

Fact Check

We started our investigation by taking screenshots from the viral video and conducting a reverse image search. This led us to a longer version of the video on the X handle INC TV, the official media platform of INC, on 29 July 2023. In this video, Kanhaiya Kumar was not criticising Rahul Gandhi, he was talking about India’s democracy. He said that in a democracy votes decide who the ruler will be. A King’s son will not become a King. He urged the members of the Youth Congress to protect the independence of this country.

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This makes it clear that the video is old.

Moving forward, using relevant keywords, we found the original video live-streamed on the official YouTube channel of the Indian Youth Congress on 27 July 2023. The video shows Kanhaiya Kumar addressing the Indian Youth Congress convention in Bangaluru. The video showed Kanhaiya Kumar criticising PM Modi in response to PM Modi’s remarks on the INDIA Bloc. Also, he urged the members of the Youth Congress to protect the independence of the country. From around the timestamp 15:15, the viral video can be seen. In this video, Kanhaiya Kumar was talking about the importance of democracy. He was not criticising Rahul Gandhi.

A report published in the Hindustan Times can be read here.

Conclusion 

From our investigation, we can say that the claim is false. The viral video doesn’t show Kanhaiya Kumar criticising Rahul Gandhi after he was stopped from boarding the open van during the Bharat Bandh Protests on 9 July. The video is old. It shows Kanhaiya Kumar addressing the Indian Youth Congress convention in Bangaluru in July 2023. He was not criticising Rahul Gandhi.