Two videos showing several people holding up and passing on a placard that reads ‘No Vote to BJP’ are being widely shared on social media, ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with users asking people to not vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The videos have been shared by the several social media accounts, including that of the Samajwadi Party’s official X account SP Prahari.
But…?: Both videos are old and have no connection to the upcoming 2024 General Elections.
How did we find out?: The Quint had fact-checked one of the videos when it was shared with a similar claim last year, with users falsely linking it to the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections.
- We found that the video showed a campaign against voting for the BJP ahead of the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections, which was shared in April 2021.
(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)
It was first shared on a YouTube channel called ‘No Vote to BJP’ on 2 April 2021.
What about the other video?: We went through the videos shared by this channel and found that they had published a second video as well, which also went viral.
- This other video was shared on 13 February 2021, with the description “A large number of people unanimously expressed their views to not vote for BJP at several iconic places of Kolkata.”
- The channel’s ‘About’ section led us to their Facebook page, which mentioned that it was made with the intention to “build public opinion against the fascist BJP in Bengal”.
Conclusion: Two old, unrelated videos of a campaign against voting from West Bengal are being shared on social media, with users linking it to the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This story was originally published by The Quint, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.