A screenshot, purportedly showing the front page of Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar‘s Bhopal edition, is being shared on social media. It carries a graphic showing survey results ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
According to the claim, a joint survey by Dainik Bhaskar and Nielsen has predicted that the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will have a lead in 10 states, including Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu.
An archive of this post can be seen here.
This post by an X user ‘@SpiritofCongres’ was viewed nearly 77,000 times and shared by 700 users at the time of writing this report.
Archives of more social media users sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.
Is it true? No, the image is fabricated.
Dainik Bhaskar called the viral image “fake” and said that the news organisation “does not claim this content”.
How did we find out?
On the top left corner of the viral image, we saw text mentioning that the page purportedly showed the front page of the Bhopal edition of the newspaper, published on 13 April.
Taking a cue from this, we looked for that specific e-paper on the organisation’s website. In the actual e-paper, the front page did not match the viral claim.
While the viral claim shows a survey for the 2024 polls, the actual e-paper shows a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) advertisement and a report about rainfall in Bhopal. The other articles surrounding it were about the caste census, boxer MC Mary Kom, and former Delhi minister Manish Sisodia, among others.
On its X account, the organisation addressed the viral claim, calling the survey “fake”, and “created by anti-social elements”.
“Dainik Bhaskar does not claim this content, there should be strict action against such people,” the post read.
#FakeNews : यह सर्वे फेक है, जिसे कुछ असामाजिक तत्वों ने तैयार किया है… दैनिक भास्कर ऐसे किसी भी कंटेंट का दावा नहीं करता है… ऐसे लोगों पर सख्त कार्रवाई होनी चाहिए#DainikBhaskar #ElectionCommission @ECISVEEP pic.twitter.com/ahKD5dFWQC
— Dainik Bhaskar (@DainikBhaskar) April 13, 2024
Dainik Bhaskar‘s survey
Using ‘Dainik Bhaskar 2024 elections survey’ as keywords, we looked for information on whether the organisation had conducted or published reports related to voter surveys for the upcoming elections.
This led us to a report published on 14 April, which showed results from the organisation’s own survey to assess “the mood of the voters”, which was conducted over a period of seven days and had over eight lakh respondents.
According to their survey, which is called ‘मेरा वोट, मेरी मर्ज़ी’ (My Vote, My Choice), 48 percent of its respondents said that they would like to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi coming back for a third term, and 37 percent of them found unemployment to be the biggest electoral problem.
Conclusion: A fake image has gone viral with the false claim that Dainik Bhaskar predicted a lead for the INDIA bloc in 10 states, in the upcoming 2024 Lok Saha elections.
This story was originally published by The Quint as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.
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