Fact Check: Old Prega News Ad Falsely Shared As Congress' Mahalaxmi Scheme Campaign

An old video ad by Prega News, a pregnancy test kit brand has been edited and shared with the false claim that it's a new ad by the Congress party on the Mahalaxmi Scheme. The Congress in its 2024 Lok Sabha manifesto has promised to give ₹ 1 lakh per year to poor households under the Mahalakshmi Scheme guarantee. Under this scheme which it has promised to launch, the money would be directly transferred to the bank account of the oldest woman of the household.

In the viral video, a group of women are talking about the challenges of balancing their career and motherhood. After this, a video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi plays in which he is talking about the Congress's Mahalaxmi Scheme Guarantee, under which the party has promised to give one lakh rupees annually to women if it forms the government at the Centre after the ongoing Lok Sabha election. The 1.14 minutes video was posted on X by the handle Amockxi FC (@Amockx2022) with the caption, "BREAKING NEWS: Congress has released new hard hitting campaign ad on Mahalaxmi Scheme. Khata Khat Khata Khat. Prashant Kishor will never mention about such brilliant ads and schemes but always cry about weak opposition."

FACT-CHECK BOOM found that the viral video is from a 2022 ad campaign #SheCanCarryBoth by Prega News which was released on the occasion of International Women's Day. We broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search using Google and found results that the viral video is from an ad by Prega News. Taking a hint from this, we found the original ad posted in February 2022 on Prega News' official YouTube channel with the caption, "Being a mom is extremely rewarding, but does that ever take a toll on your ambitions and dreams? This Women's Day with Prega News, it's time to break free from the nay-sayers of society and bring in confidence to women that #SheCanCarryBoth!" The part in the viral video can be seen from the 40 seconds timestamp till the 1.15 minutes timestamp. The part after this has been edited out in the viral video to falsely claim that it is a Congress party Mahalaxmi scheme ad. The full ad can be seen below:

The Congress party has released several ads around the Mahalaxmi scheme on its YouTube channel and these do not match the viral video.