While the country is preparing for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a lot of posts and videos regarding the same can be seen on social media. In one such case, a video of EVM tampering is now quite viral. It can be seen in the video that when a lady presses 2 different buttons on the EVM, only the BJP slip came out. Users are claiming that ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections a case of EVM tampering was found in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
However, Fact Crescendo found the claim to be false. This is not a recent incident but dated back to 2017. This video is being circulated as recent incident to mislead people.
What’s the claim?
Sharing the video, a social media user wrote that 19 people were suspended during the demo of EVM in Madhya Pradesh. Pressing Congress or Aam Aadmi Party button, printed BJP.
Fact Check-
In the viral video, we saw a watermark saying, “Credit-ABP News”
After this, we ran a keyword search on Google and found the same video uploaded on ABP News YouTube channel on 1 April 2017. According to the report this is a video of demonstration of the voting machine held by the Election Commission for the assembly election of Bhind, Madhya Pradesh. A controversy erupted during the demonstration when the machine showed the vote casted to BJP even when the button of the other parties were pressed. This incident was followed by the suspension of 12 officials including District Collector and SP
Further research led us to a report on the same incident by Aaj Tak on 8 April 2017. According to the report, on the orders of the Election Commission, an investigation team led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwarlal found that there was no fault in the EVMs. There were three machines during voting: Ballot Unit, Control Unit and VVPAT. The VVPAT machine, which was displayed during the training of polling officers in Bhind on 31 March and was used in the assembly elections held in Kanpur’s Govind Nagar area.
Conclusion:
Fact Crescendo found the claim to be misleading. The viral video is not of a recent incident. This dates back to 2017 during a demonstration of the machine before the Bhind’s assembly election in Madhya Pradesh. This incident has no connection with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections
Title:Is this a video of EVM tampering ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections? Know the truth.
Fact Check By: Siddharth SahuResult: Misleading
