Amid the ongoing assembly elections in UP, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav tweeted a video of booth capturing and wrote, “Election observers should request the Election Commission to take cognizance of a video of booth capturing at Kunda by a party representative publicly pressing the vote button on behalf of women and cancel the Kunda elections immediately. The individual in the video should be identified and arrested immediately.” While he has since deleted this tweet, its archived version can be accessed here.
The clip is widespread on Facebook.
The video has also been shared with the claim that the man entering the polling booth to vote on behalf of the women is associated with the BJP.
चुनाव अधिकारी की मिलीभगत से “भाजपा” का पोलिंग एजेंट खुद ही डाल रहा है सबके वोट 😡😡 pic.twitter.com/nH0jPPZhRZ
— Atul Solanki (@AtulSol73411551) February 26, 2022
Old video from Haryana
Alt News had already debunked this video back in November 2020, when it was being falsely circulated as scenes from polling during the Bihar elections in Dhandli. This video was actually taken during the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. We used the video verification tool InVid to break the video into multiple keyframes and reverse search them on Google. This led us to a tweet thread from May 12, 2019 carrying the video.
What the is this? Is this what we call democracy? pic.twitter.com/XFuvq5dD1m
— Ravi Nair (@t_d_h_nair) May 12, 2019
The user added a tweet by the Faridabad District Election Office in the thread that said the man who was entering the polling booth has been arrested. It also stated that polling was never vitiated.
Prompt action taken. FIR lodged. Person behind bars. Observer enquired the matter personally and is satisfied that polling was never vitiated.
— DISTRICT ELECTION OFFICE FARIDABAD (@OfficeFaridabad) May 12, 2019
On May 13, 2019, NDTV reported that the incident occurred in Haryana during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Faridabad election office confirmed that senior election officers visited the booth and saw the polling agent trying to influence ‘at least three lady voters’. He was arrested shortly afterwards.
In sum, a video of booth capturing from the 2019 Lok Sabha elections was falsely shared by Akhilesh Yadav in connection with the ongoing UP assembly polls. Officials had arrested the individual seen in the video.
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.
