The first phase of Lok Sabha Elections 2024 kicked off on Friday with a nearly 69% voter turnout. Voting took place for 102 seats in 21 states and Union Territories in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections. However, a video is going viral on social media which allegedly shows two women casting fake votes while wearing burqas. This video was shared by many users on X, all making the same claim. But the question arises, is the claim being made in the viral video true? Were fake votes being cast while wearing burqas during phase 1 polling of Lok Sabha Elections 2024? Here's what we found out:
The Viral Video:
A verified user named Frontal Force wrote - Women were caught doing fake voting under the cover of burqa, this is the reason why the opposition is asking to remove the burqa and not check the identity.
More than 6.5 lakh people have seen this post (at the time of writing), with over 20k likes and more than 6.5k retweets.
Verified user Azat Alsalam, wrote - fake votes are being cast by making Salma, Nagma etc wear burqa. This time it's strict. So many such women coming for fake voting are being caught.
More than 2.5 lakh people have seen the post so far. There have been more than 7 thousand likes and more than 3 thousand retweets. After checking the profile of the user, we came to know that he is followed by more than 40 thousand people including PM Modi on X. Azat had retweeted the video from user Lalit Rawal, who has "Modi ka Pariwar" written in his Bio
Fact Check: Is the claim in the video real?
Now the question arises, is the video true? To know the truth of the video, True Scoop News reverse searched its key frames on Google. On searching, we found this video on a Facebook page named Troll Indian Politics.
This video was shared on Facebook page on 15 February 2022. The caption of the video reads - UP Election 2022 In Rampur, police caught women wearing burqa, beat them up and arrested them on the spot while trying to do fake voting.
On searching the keywords on google, it was found that many media reports were also published regarding this matter. This video of 14 February 2022 is from Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh. In fact, during the second phase of voting for the 2022 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, two women wearing burqa were arrested while casting fake voting.
According to media reports, the names of these two women were said to be Muskaan and Rani. The police registered a case against them and arrested them on the spot. It is clear that the claim being made with the viral video on social media is completely wrong. This video is not from now but during the 2022 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
Conclusion: The claim being made in this viral video is false.