A Facebook page by the name ‘Samvaad TV’ – with around one lakh followers – shared a video regarding the 2022 Presidential elections with a caption stating that National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) candidate Droupadi Murmu accepted defeat in the elections, and the Opposition’s Yashwant Sinha had been named the new president.
The same text was highlighted in the image used as the thumbnail of the video.
However, this information is far from truth. The voting for the presidential polls took place on 18 July and the results will be declared on 21 July.
(You can catch all the live updates of the 2022 Presidential elections here.)
CLAIM
The post is being shared with text that claims Murmu accepted defeat against the new president, Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) Yashwant Sinha in the 2022 Presidential elections.
At the time of writing this article, the post was viewed over seven lakh times and was shared by more than 1,300 Facebook users.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We watched the video shared in the post, and found that it did not say anything remotely close to what was claimed in the caption or thumbnail.
The video discussed how as the polls neared, members of the Opposition were coming out in vocal support of Sinha. It elaborated how Murmu had not campaigned for votes to support her and had instead written to the leaders for their votes.
We also noticed that the video's thumbnail carried News24 anchor Sandeep Chaudhary's photo. Taking a cue from this, we checked News24's verified YouTube channel and saw that it had not aired any such bulletin.
Next, we looked for news reports and found some regarding a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA boycotting the polls and Sinha’s appeal to vote for him to “save democracy,” but none on either of the candidates accepting defeat or being named president.
The results for the Presidential elections are scheduled to be announced on 21 July. The newly elected President of India will take oath on 25 July, succeeding President Ram Nath Kovind.
Evidently, NDA’s Droupadi Murmu did not “accept defeat” and Yashwant Sinha has not been elected President.
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