Old video from West Bengal passed off as vote rigging in Gujarat poll

Social Media users are sharing a video claiming that vote rigging was committed in Gujarat.

In the video, a polling agent can be seen seated at a desk, and another man in a blue t-shirt is pressing EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) on behalf of voters entering the booth.

The claim is at a time when Gujarat is going to poll. The polling for 89 seats of the first phase was held on 1 December. Nearly 60% voter turnout was recorded. The second phase of polling will be held on 5 December.

A Twitter user shared the video and wrote, "This is the real face of @BJP4India & @BJP4Gujarat, these people want to win elections by doing such vile acts, this is how they manage EVMs, this is a mockery of democracy." (Translated)

Click here to see the post.

Several other Twitter users shared the video and claimed rigging in the Gujarat election. Click here and here to see the archive of the post.

Fact Check

NewsMeter noticed that the people in the video were talking in Bangla. Taking this as a cue, we performed a reverse image search of the video's keyframe using keywords. We found the video posted by the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) on 27 February 2022. Both parties had accused Trinamool Congress (TMC) of vote rigging.

Congress party also posted on the same date images similar to the visuals in the video accusing the TMC of vote rigging.

Further, we found the video published by TV9 Bangla on 27 February. It said that during the West Bengal municipal election of 2022, an agent was voting in booth no.108 of ward no. 33 of South Dumdum.

The video was also published by another Bengali digital channel 'Aarohi News', on 27 February. It said the incident occurred in South Dumdum.

The video is from the West Bengal municipal election, which happened in February this year. Hence, the claim that the video shows vote rigging in Gujarat Assembly polls is misleading.