Old Video from 2019 LS Polls Shared as EVM Manipulation in Bihar

An old, unverified video of alleged EVM manipulation has gone viral on social media as ‘foul play’ in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly elections.

The video, however, is of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, from the Basti constituency in Uttar Pradesh.

CLAIM

The video is being circulated with the claim, “पहले ही चरण की वोटिंग में खेल शुरू हो गया है...हाथी को वोट डालो तो भाजपा को जाता है. आप सभी देख ले”

(Translation: “The game has started in the first phase voting...If the elephant is voted, then it goes to the BJP. You all see.”)

The video shared by a user on Twitter had garnered over 23,200 views at the time of writing this article.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

A reverse search image led us to social media posts from May 2019, when the video was first shared as alleged EVM manipulation during the Lok Sabha Elections, proving that the video isn’t recent.

The same claim was made in Punjabi by this user who shared it in 2019. The caption reads, “what more evidence should there be of EVM manipulation? The hand hit the elephant. Please share, but according to this, BJP can't lose.”

While looking closely, we could make out names like Chandramani Pandey, Pankaj Dubey and Vinod Kumar Rajbhar, who contested from the Basti constituency in Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections. Thus, the video cannot be of the Bihar elections.

Further, slowing down the video to half its speed also reveals that the woman is actually pressing the button next to BJP’s lotus symbol with her thumb.

Evidently, an old unverified video of the alleged EVM manipulation during the Lok Sabha Elections is from 2019 and has been falsely revived as ‘foul play’ during the first phase of Bihar Assembly elections.

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