A viral video shows people holding up placards and urging to not vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party. The video is going viral with the claim that it shows a worldwide protest against the BJP before the upcoming Karnataka Assembly elections in May 2023.
Claim:
The video shows several persons holding a note that says, ‘No Vote to BJP’ in English. The video is edited to show people from locations such as Davis, Berlin, Helsinki, London, New York and Los Angeles passing around the note to each other.
Twitter user, ‘Pernamallur M.Prakash’ shared the video with the claim, “Across the globe everyone says “NO VOTE to BJP #KarnatakaElections2023”
The social media coordinator of the Indian Overseas Congress shared the video with the same claim.
Fact Check:
During the initial investigation, we observed the video carefully and found that all the poster carried text in Bengali below the ‘No Vote to BJP” sign. It clearly suggest that the viral image is somehow related to West Bengal.
We conducted a reverse image search on the viral video by breaking down the keyframes of the video. Then we came across a video uploaded to Twitter by the Twitter page, ‘No Vote To BJP’ on April 24, 2021. The video was tweeted with a caption that reads, “Bengalis across the world saying “No Vote To BJP”.
The Twitter page describes itself as a no-vote campaign against the BJP leading up to the West Bengal assembly polls in 2021.
The video shows a campaign against voting for the BJP ahead of the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections and was first shared in April 2021. we conducted a keyword search for ‘No Vote for BJP Bengal’. This led us to a news articles, in The Wire, dated February 2021.
The campaign spread over time, and as per a report published by The Times Of India in April 2021, the campaign was spread to 20 districts in West Bengal. One such protest was in Kolkata, where people can be seen holding a “No Vote To BJP” note.
An India Today report from April. 2021, shows the protests carried out as a part of the ‘No Vote To BJP’ movement in Kolkata.
We also came across a clearer version of the video on ‘No Vote to BJP’s YouTube channel. The video was uploaded on 2 April 2021. The caption of the video reads, “Judgment of people around the world. There is no division in Bengal”.
Conclusion:
An old video showing a campaign against the BJP in West Bengal is viral with false claims. The video is falsely linked to the upcoming 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections. Thus, the image is viral with misleading claims.
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https://thelogicalindian.com/h-upload/2023/04/27/500x300_231289-new-project-2023-04-27t104928719.webp
Fact Check
2023-04-27 09:27:34.0
This Video Shows ‘No Vote To BJP’ Campaign Before Karnataka Assembly Elections? No, Video Viral With Misleading Claim
