Fact Check: Claim of election fraud in Assam’s Dima Hasao is from 2021 State polls, not 2024
This incident took place during the second phase of Assembly elections in Assam on April 1, 2021, not the 2024
By Sibahathulla Sakib Published on 4 May 2024 8:15 PM GMT
Hyderabad: Following the first two phases of voting for the 2024 General Election, a claim of election fraud allegedly in the Dima Hasao district of Assam is circulating on social media.
“In the Dima Hasao district of Assam, there were only 90 voters, but 171 votes were cast in the EVM and 5 officers of the Election Commission were suspended, (translated from Hindi)” posted a user on X.
Screengrab from the post (Source: X/ @ghoshi_manjeet)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is misleading. This election fraud happened during the 2021 Assembly Elections in Assam.
Upon carrying out a keyword search, we found a report published by The Wire titled ‘Assam: 171 Votes Cast in Dima Hasao District That Has Only 90 Voters’ on April 5, 2021. This discrepancy in voters and votes was reported at a polling booth in Assam’s Dima Hasao district where the number of votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters. The booth at 107 (A) Khotlir LP School was set up for the second phase of Assembly elections on April 1, 2021. Despite having a voters’ list with only 90 names, 171 votes were registered in the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
The same report was also published in other media outlets such as The Times of India, Scroll, The Hindu, Hindustan Times and India Today on April 5, 2021.
As per these reports, upon finding out the irregularity, the district election officer suspended five poll officials for ‘dereliction of duty’ and proposed a repoll. The officials suspended include the sector officer, the presiding officer, and three polling officers.
An official statement mentioned that the head of the village refused to accept the official voters’ list and presented his own, which was used for voting. It remains unclear why the polling officials complied with the village head’s list and what role, if any, security personnel played at the polling station.
The deputy commissioner-cum-district election officer of Dima Hasao issued the suspension order on April 2, the day after polling, but the information came to light on the morning of April 5.
In the course of our investigation, we also came across a video report by NDTV addressing this issue three years ago. As of the latest updates, there has been no new development in the case since the original incident.
Hence, we conclude that the claim of election fraud in Assam’s Dima Hasao is old and not connected with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
