A video of a man casting votes on behalf of three women in a polling booth is being shared to claim that it shows voting fraud during the ongoing Lok Sabha Elections.
What have users said?: Those sharing the video have uploaded it with a caption that loosely translated to, “North Indian elections! This is Modi magic to secure 400 seats!.”
An archive of the post can be seen here.
The video has been widely shared on social media platforms, such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). You can view archives of similar claims here, here, and here.
What is the truth?: This video could be traced back to at least May 2019 and is unrelated to the ongoing general elections. As per reports, the incident took place in Haryana’s Faridabad during the then Lok Sabha Elections.
How did we find that out?: On performing a reverse image search using Google Lens, we found the same visuals shared on the official YouTube channel of Hindustan Times.
- The video report was uploaded on 13 May 2019 and it was titled, “Poll agent arrested for influencing voters at Faridabad booth.”
- Its description mentioned that a polling agent was arrested for allegedly influencing voters in Faridabad.
- District Election Office Faridabad had lodged an First Information Information (FIR) and arrested the polling agent.
News reports: An NDTV report said that a polling agent in Faridabad was arrested in the sixth round of the national election for allegedly influencing voters.
- The report said that the video showed a man in a blue t-shirt sitting at his table in Faridabad’s Prithla.
- The man then can be seen walking up to the voting compartment when some women were about to cast their votes.
- The report further carried the reply given by the District Election Office Faridabad, who confirmed that the polling agent was arrested.
The person in the video is the Polling agent who has been arrested in the afternoon itself. FIR lodged. He was trying to effect at least 3 lady voters. Observer & ARO with teams visited the booth at Asawati in prithala constituency. He is satisfied that voting was never vitiated
— DISTRICT ELECTION OFFICE FARIDABAD (@OfficeFaridabad) May 12, 2019
- India Today, too, shared a similar report saying that the incident is from the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections.
A second wind?: Team WebQoof had previously debunked the same video, when it was falsely linked to the 2020 Bihar assembly elections.
Conclusion: This video is old and is being falsely linked to 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.
(This story was originally published by The Quint, and republished by Main Media English as part of the Shakti Collective.)
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