Watch video: PM Narendra Modi used this beggar’s example to persuade people to move to digital payments

However, the video the PM seems to be mentioning was uploaded around two years back. Available on YouTube and uploaded by a channel named Numerographic, the video shows a couple (not a man) in Hyderabad stopped at a traffic signal. After standing there for a while, a beggar comes to them asking for money. The woman, who’s in the driver’s seat, says she doesn’t have any change to give him.

The beggar insists that he can give her change. After looking through her wallet, however, she says she only has a card. At this, the beggar says he has a card machine. The woman then asks him to show the machine. He seems to be carrying a wireless machine. The video ends at that and whether or not the machine actually swipes cards remains unknown.

Citing the video, PM Modi said Indians do not take long to accept new things if they are told the intentions are right.

The video was uploaded in 2014 and has been doing the rounds online for quite some time now, much before the demonetisation policy was announced. Additionally, with a camera on before the beggar could even approach the occupants of the car and the woman showing her wallet to the camera, the video seemed to be staged.

Amidst chants of “Modi-Modi” by the audience during the rally, the Prime Minister referred to hundreds of villages which do not have power, even 70 years after Independence. “People in villages also want to see TV…they also like to see ‘saas-bahu’ serial but as there is no electricity how can they see it,” Modi said, referring to the popular TV show.

Taking a dig at those who have been attacking him over the move, he said, “Some people have lost glow on their faces… earlier they used to chant money-money, now they are chanting Modi-Modi.”