ABP News Predicted Congress' Victory in Himachal? No, Poll is Edited and Old

A recent opinion poll conducted for the upcoming 2022 Himachal Pradesh elections predicted a win for the BJP.

Fact-Check | An old and edited ABP New bulletin was shared one predicting a win for Congress in the upcoming 2022 Himachal Pradesh elections.

(Photo: The Quint)

An old video showing the results of an opinion poll purportedly published by ABP News is being shared with a claim that the channel has predicted a win for Congress in the upcoming 2022 Himachal Pradesh elections.

What does the video say?: The video shows Congress getting a majority of 39-45 seats out of 68 seats while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is being projected to win 22-28 seats.

Who shared it?: Congress leader from New Delhi, Alka Lamba, shared the video on Twitter, with a caption that read, "बन गई सरकार... हिमाचल का आभार".

[Translation: Formed the government, thank you, Himachal.]

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The video had been viewed 44,000 times when this story was being written. It was also shared on Facebook.

What is the truth?: The video is old and edited. The original video showed an ABP News opinion poll that was telecast before the 2017 Himachal Pradesh Elections and it predicted a win for the BJP.

How did we find that out?:

• We noticed that the logo of ABP News in the viral video was an old one, and the channel has updated its logo in December 2020 for all its platforms.

• We conducted a reverse image search of one of the keyframes from the viral video and found the original video published on ABP News' official YouTube handle published on 30 October 2017.

• The original video gave the BJP a majority of 39-45 seats out of 68 seats, while Congress was projected to win 22-28 seats. The viral part can be seen around 4:44 mark.

• The audio of the anchor was also manipulated in a way to reverse the narrative.

Comparison between the viral video and the original video:

Comparison between the original bulletin and the viral video.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

What does the latest ABP News opinion poll say?: We found an opinion poll published by ABP News on 14 October for the 2022 Himachal Pradesh elections.

• According to the results of the opinion poll, the BJP is likely to win 38-46 seats, Congress projected to win 20-28 seats, 0-1 seats for the Aam Aadmi Party, and 0-3 for candidates from other parties.

The latest opinion poll results published on ABP News.

(Source: YouTube/ABP News/Screenshot)

Conclusion: Evidently, an old ABP News bulletin was edited to claim that the channel predicted a win for Congress in the upcoming 2022 Himachal Pradesh elections.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)