Created by Factly
C0-Published by LokmatTimes.com
During the ongoing 2024 General Elections, a video is circulating across social media platforms purporting to depict recent footage of a polling agent tampering with the votes of female voters within a polling booth. This article aims to fact-check the validity of this claim.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows an old ‘booth capture’ incident that took place during the 2019 General Elections in Faridabad, Haryana. In May 2019, during the 2019 General Elections, a polling agent was caught manipulating women voters and the voting process inside a polling booth in Asawati village in the Prithala constituency. The Faridabad District Election Officer filed an FIR and immediately arrested the polling agent. The video shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the ongoing 2024 General Elections. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, videos with similar visuals were found uploaded on social media at least since May 2019. These visuals were attributed to a polling booth in Asawati village in Haryana. When Factly searched with relevant keywords, a video with similar visuals was found published by ‘The Times of India’ on 13 May 2019. TOI reported it as visuals of a polling agent manipulating women voters and the voting process in Faridabad, Haryana.
This incident reportedly took place during the 2019 General Elections polling inside a polling booth in Asawati village in the Prithala constituency. Reporting the complete details of the incident, several news agencies published articles and videos in May 2019.When this video went viral on social media, on 12 May 2019, the Faridabad district Election officer made a tweet informing that they had filed an FIR and immediately arrested the polling agent who influenced women voters in the Asawati polling booth. Lately, there have been no reports of ‘booth capture’ incident in the Pratapgarh district in Uttar Pradesh. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be confirmed that the video shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the ongoing UP Elections. Factly had debunked the same video earlier when it was attributed to the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections. To sum up, an old video from the 2019 General Elections is being shared as recent visuals of a polling agent manipulating votes in the 2024 General Elections.
This story was originally published by Factly, and republished by LokmatTimes.com as part of the Shakti Collective.