Fact Check: Did Guntakal TDP-JSP candidate Madhusudan Gupta destroy EVM during 2024 AP polls?

Hyderabad: During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh, the current Macherla MLA Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy vandalised an EVM inside a polling station in the constituency. AP chief electoral officer (CEO) MK Meena stated that the police have registered a case against him under various sections and that appropriate action will be taken.

In this context, a video has gone viral claiming that Guntakal TDP-Jana Sena Party joint MLA candidate Madhusudan Gupta also vandalised an EVM during polling for the 2024 AP Assembly and Parliamentary elections on May 13. In support of this claim, a video of a person destroying an EVM is being shared.

A Facebook user shared the video, stating, “This video has come to light with the case registered against MLA Pinnelli Ramakrishna Reddy of Macherla. What are the actions of the Election Commission on this? (translated from Telugu)” Archive

Delete Edit

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is misleading. The video is from the 2019 Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh.

We searched the internet using appropriate keywords to check whether any EVM vandalism took place in the Guntakal constituency on the polling days for the 2024 AP polls, as claimed in the viral post. However, we did not find any news reports of such an incident occurring in the Guntakal constituency.

Furthermore, it is known that Gummunur Jayaram from the TDP is contesting from the Guntakal constituency in the 2024 Assembly election as the candidate of the TDP-Jana Sena-BJP alliance. Additionally, we couldn’t find Madhusudan Gupta from the Guntakal constituency in the news of any EVM vandalism.

Upon doing a search using the keyframes of the video, we found a post on X by ANI news on April 11, 2019, reporting the same scenes. According to this post, Jana Sena MLA candidate Madhusudan Gupta vandalised an EVM at a polling station in Gooty town of Anantapur district and was arrested by police.

According to an NDTV report, Madusudan Gupta, the JSP candidate of Guntakal Constituency in Anantapur District, went to vote at polling booth number 183 in Gooty and expressed anger against the officials because the names of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies were not written properly in the polling station. It is known that the EVM was broken during this altercation.

A video report by Sakshi channel said that shortly after the incident, Guntakal Jana Sena MLA candidate Madhusudan Gupta was arrested by the police.

Based on this information, we confirm that the viral video of MLA candidate Madhusudan Gupta vandalising an EVM at a polling centre in Gooty town is from the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections.