DigitEye India Fact Checkers
Ahead of Delhi elections, several posts on social media are going viral with claims that former Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convenor Aravind Kejriwal said that BR Ambedkar was drunk while drafting the Constitution of India.
The post included a brief black-and-white clip of Kejriwal addressing the public in Hindi while the translated version reads:
“We were sitting there. Someone was saying that the person who wrote the Constitution must have been drunk when he did it.”
अरविन्द केजरीवाल के अनुसार बाबा साहेब ने दारू पी कर सविंधान लिखा था।
एक संघी हमेशा दलित विरोधी, सविंधान विरोधी ही होता है और रहेगा।
केजरीवाल के विचार कितने मेल खाते हैं संधियों से, यूं ही इनको छोटा संघी नहीं कहा जाता है ! pic.twitter.com/OgDjtlD3aK
— Eldho Jobi 07 ( INC ) (@07Eldho) December 23, 2024
Translated from Hindi it reads:”
According to Arvind Kejriwal, Baba Saheb wrote the Constitution after drinking alcohol.
A Sanghi is always and will always be anti-Dalit and anti-Constitution.
Kejriwal’s thoughts match so much with the conventions, he is not called a small Sanghi for nothing!”
BR Ambedkar was drunk while writing the Constitution: @ArvindKejriwal
He should be Arrested
Share this maximum pic.twitter.com/QVmnLCK5dR
— Vibhor Anand🇮🇳(हिंसक हिंदू) (@AlphaVictorVA) December 22, 2024
The context is the ongoing protests by the opposition on remarks made in parliament on Ambedkar, who was chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution and architect of the Indian constitution. The claim has been shared here and here.
FACT-CHECK
We took out key frames of the video and searched on Google Reverse Image search. The original video appeared in the results covering a speech by the AAP leader and uploaded on its YouTube channel on December 3, 2012. The speech was given on November 25, 2012 at Rajghat, New Delhi.
Essentially, the black and white video clip in the social media post shows Kejriwal criticizing the Congress party in 2012 for not adhering to its own constitution, when he led an election campaign for AAP to defeat the Congress.
The remarks on constitution at the 4:45 timestamp show his remarks and nowhere did he refer to the Constitution of India. The video clip was being shared out of context to show that he was referring to the Indian Constitution. Hence, the claim is false.
Claim: According to Arvind Kejriwal, Baba Saheb wrote the Constitution after drinking alcohol.
Conclusion: Misrepresentation. Kejriwal was criticizing the Congress party in a 2012 video for not adhering to its own constitution, not the Constitution of India.
Rating: Misrepresentation — 
