An Old and Unrelated Video from Bengal Shared as Voter Fraud in Karnataka Assembly Elections

A video showing a person casting votes multiple times inside a polling booth is going viral on social media platforms. It is being alleged that this video is from Gulbarga North, where the Congress party is accused of committing fraud to win the assembly elections.

https://www.twitter.com/Himanshi_mehra_/status/1658007671348543489

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In the viral tweet given above, we can see a video of a person casting multiple votes as the polling officer looks on. The caption of the tweet reads as follows: “Gulbarga North Fake voting done at one of the Muslim booth around 6000 votes by single person from Congress party. Now he is under capture by chandu patil and demanding for Disqualification of Congress MLA. Kaneez Fatima of INC has won the Gulbarga Uttar. #Karnataka”

Thus, the tweet accuses Kaneez Fathima of the Congress party of rigging the elections to defeat Chandu Patil of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Gulbarga Uttar constituency during the recent Karnataka assembly elections. However, upon fact-checking the video, we discovered that it is old and unrelated to Karnataka. Here is the fact check.

Fact Check

We conducted a Google search using relevant keywords to check if any election fraud had been reported from the Gulbarga Uttar assembly seat. However, we did not find any reports of such mass poll rigging in Gulbarga Uttar.

Upon listening to the conversation in the video, we realized that the language spoken was not Kannada but Bangla. This video had also gone viral last year during the Gujarat assembly elections. Our team conducted a thorough fact check on this video and discovered that it was not from Gujarat but from West Bengal. You can read the fact check in Hindi by clicking on the link provided below.

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The incident took place during the municipal elections conducted in West Bengal in 2022. The video was captured at a polling booth in South Dum Dum. We found a report by TV 9 Bangla regarding this matter.

According to the report, the incident took place at Lake View School in South Dum Dum, West Bengal. Specifically, it occurred at booth number 108 of ward 33. Allegedly, the employees present at the booth prevented voters from casting their votes and instead cast votes on their behalf. This incident happened on February 27, 2022. The video was tweeted by the official handle of the Bengal BJP.

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Communist Party of India (Marxist) also raised questions on the state of democracy in West Bengal by posting this video on their official Facebook page. 

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Conclusion

The video shared as evidence of voting fraud in the Gulbarga Uttar assembly seat during the recent Karnataka elections is actually an old video from Bengal. It was recorded during the local body elections in West Bengal last year and has no relation to Karnataka.