Dhankhar Questions PM Modi Govt Over Farmers’ Protests In Last Speech As VP? Here’s The Truth Behind Viral Video

A video claiming to show former Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar’s last public speech, purportedly questioning the Centre’s stance on farmers’ grievances, has gone viral on social media. According to the claim, Dhankar was allegedly forced to resign after the address, while citing health concerns as the reason.

The archived version of the post can be seen here. A similar claim can be seen here.

An Unexpected Resignation

Jagdeep Dhankhar’s resignation from his post as the Vice President of India on Monday (July 21), just hours after he chaired the Business Advisory Committee in the Rajya Sabha, was abrupt and shocking, sparking speculation, despite the 74-year-old citing “medical advice”. The Opposition parties demanded that the ruling BJP clear the air over what really happened amid reports that the distance between Dhankhar and the government had widened significantly over the past year.

Fact

Newschecker ran a keyword search for “Dhankhar last speech”, which led us to this NDTV report, dated July 19, 2022, a couple of days before his shock resignation, stating, “Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday addressed the 2024 batch of Indian Defence Estates Service (IDES) officer trainees at the Vice-President’s Enclave, delivering a forceful speech underlining India’s sovereign decision-making and civilisational ethos.”

We then looked up the official Youtube channel of the Vice President, where we found several videos of Dhankhar delivering speeches in the weeks preceding his resignation, seen here, here and here, including the widely reported speech during an event at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on July 10, where he is heard saying that he will retire at the right time, i.e., August 2027. You can clearly see across the reports and the videos that it is not the same event seen in the 43-second viral clip, where he questioned the Central government’s unaddressed promises made to farmers amid their protests, hence contradicting the viral claim that it was the last speech.

A further search led us to this video uploaded by the official Youtube channel on December 6, 2024, where Dhankhar addressed the gathering as the chief guest at the Centenary Foundation Day celebrations of ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology (CIRCOT) in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The viral excerpt can be seen from 18:38 to 19:19. An X post by the official account, dated December 3, 2024, can be seen here.

We came across this NDTV report, dated December 3, 2024, stating that Dhankhar took up the farmers’ issues and questioned the government on their behalf, directing most of his queries at the Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.  “Agriculture Minister, every moment is important for you. I request you to please tell me, what was promised to the farmer? Why was the promise not fulfilled? What should we do to fulfil the promise? There was a movement last year, there is a movement this year too. The wheel of time is turning, we are not doing anything,” he reportedly said, speaking at a ceremony to mark the centenary of ICAR-CIRCOT (Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Institute for Research on Cotton Technology).  Similar reports from December 2024 can be seen here and here, further confirming that it was not the last public speech of Dhankar that forced his resignation.

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Conclusion

Viral video claiming to show former Vice President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar’s last public address, which allegedly led to his resignation, was found to be an old speech shared out of context.

Sources
Youtube video, Vice President of India, December 6, 2024