Old video of TMC leader being attacked shared linking to the 2024 Lok Sabha election

The viral video shows an incident from the 2021 West Bengal Election, it is not recent.

General elections will be held in India from 19 April 2024 to 1 June 2024 to elect the 543 members of the 18th Lok Sabha. Social media is geared up with so many images videos related to elections. Against this backdrop, a video showing a woman being chased away in an open field by a mob is going viral on social media platforms. 

Users who shared the video claim that Sujata Mondal Khan, the TMC Lok Sabha candidate from Bishnupur, and other party workers were beaten and pushed away by voters in Arambagh while threatening them to vote for her party.

The caption of the video states, “Sujata Khan, TMC candidate from Bishnupur was threatening voters of Arambagh to vote for TMC or they will face consequences. Voters of Arambagh beat up Sujata Khan and other party workers and chased them away from there. Hindus of Bengal are fighting”

Facebook Post| Archive link

Fact Check- 

We started the investigation with a reverse image and keyword search on Google and the results led us to an NDTV report from 6 April, 2021.

As per the report, “A candidate from Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress was chased out of a polling booth in Bengal today as voting was on in the third phase of the assembly election in the state. Sujata Mondol Khan was chased with lathis by a group of people in the middle of a field. Ms Banerjee said “BJP workers chased Trinamool candidate Sujata Mondol and hit her on head near a polling booth”.

During the third phase of the state elections, the TMC filed a complaint with the Election Commission when party MLA and Arambagh candidate Sujata Mondal was attacked in her constituency.

Archive link

Using this hints, we searched more information regarding this incident and found an extended version of the video uploaded by the official YouTube channel of Anandabazar Patrika on 6 April 2021, with the caption, “Sujata Mondal Khan attacked by goons with bamboo stick”

Therefore, it is clear that this video is not recent; it is from April 2021 during the West Bengal state assembly elections. An old video of the TMC leader is being attacked shared as recent.

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be False. The footage shows an incident that took place during campaigning for the 2021 West Bengal state elections. It is not recent.