PM Modi’s claim of Congress contesting lowest number of seats in 2019 Lok Sabha election is wrong

In an interview given to the English news channel India Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the Congress is contesting the lowest number of seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election in its entire political history.

PM Modi says, “…teesri baat jo media miss kar raha hai. Ab woh unki madad karne ke liye miss kar raha hai ya imaandari se miss kar raha hai, main aarop nahi laga raha hoon. 2014 ka chunav, uske nateeje, Congress ka uske poore jeevan kaal ka sab se kam seats jeet ne ka record. 2014. Aur 2019, unke poore jeevan kaal mein sabse kam seats ladne ka record. Ye do cheezein desh ke saamne baar baar aani chahiye. (…the third thing which the media is missing. Now whether they are missing it to help them or they are genuinely missing it, I am not accusing. 2014 election, its result; Congress got the record of the lowest number of seats in its entire history. 2014. And in 2019, they have the record of contesting the lowest number of seats in their entire political history. These two things should come to the fore in front of the nation.)”

Listen to his comment here (from 1:03:45 minutes):

TRUTH:

PM Modi’s claim of the grand old party contesting the lowest number of seats this time in its entire political history only shows his lack of knowledge.

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His claim was countered by Congress leader Ahmed Patel, who took to Twitter and informed the PM that the grand old party contested even lesser seats in 2004 and still formed the government.

It is troubling that PM is so ill-informed & this has reflected on his governance

But I will clarify two things

1)Congress is not contesting its lowest ever seats,hence media is not highlighting his false claims

2)In 2004 we contested even lesser seats & still formed govt pic.twitter.com/rljC7GArmA

— Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) May 1, 2019

Also, if you go through this website: https://manifesto.inc.in/en/candidate-list-2019/, it shows that Congress is contesting from 424 seats.

As reported by Alt News, the Congress contested the 2009 Lok Sabha election on 440 seats, and the 2004 Lok Sabha election on 417 seats. The number of the 2004 Lok Sabha election is less than the number of seats (424) the Congress is contesting in this election.

Clearly, PM Modi’s claim is factually incorrect.

Credit: Alt News