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Modi’s 2013 black-money speech said returning offshore funds could mean ₹15–20 lakh for each poor Indian
A resurfaced clip records Narendra Modi saying in a 2013 Kanker rally that bringing back black money held abroad could amount to ₹15–20 lakh for each poor Indian. The remark is authentic, but the quoted passage is an illustrative calculation rather than a literal promise to deposit ₹15 lakh in every account.
What the clip shows
An Instagram reel republishes a short clip of Narendra Modi speaking about black money held in foreign banks. In the speech, Modi says that if money deposited abroad by “chor-lutere” were brought back, each poor Indian could get roughly ₹15–20 lakh “for free”.
Context and verification
The underlying remark is real and dates to a November 7, 2013 rally in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, before Modi became prime minister. Contemporary and later reporting identifies this as the early source of the widely debated “₹15 lakh” line.
There is an important distinction in how the statement should be described. The wording in the speech presents ₹15–20 lakh as an illustration of the amount that could correspond to each poor person if offshore black money were recovered. It does not literally say, in the quoted passage, “I promise to deposit ₹15 lakh in every bank account.” The line nevertheless became a major political issue after the 2014 election and was repeatedly characterised by opponents as an unfulfilled promise. In 2015, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley described the figure as an “illustrative” statement.
Why it matters
The clip is useful as a primary audiovisual record of Modi’s pre-2014 rhetoric on offshore black money. It also helps separate the words actually spoken from the stronger shorthand often used later—that ₹15 lakh had been explicitly promised as a bank transfer to every citizen.
The Instagram account sharing this reel is not treated as the original source of the 2013 speech; it is a later republication. Its caption appears unrelated to the video, so the archive relies on the audiovisual speech itself and independent reporting for context.
