An old video of a protest against Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in Delhi, is viral with a false claim that the protest happened in Maharashtra, post the recent polls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Mahayuti alliance secured a landslide victory with 235 seats in the Maharashtra assembly election. The opposition alliance - Maha Vikas Aghadi managed only 50 seats, falling short of the required numbers to qualify for the Leader of Opposition (LoP) post.
The opposition has been questioning the integrity of EVMs after the defeat, with calls for returning to the use of ballot paper. 95-year-old social activist Dr Baba Adhav has started an agitation in Pune on November 28, 2024, against EVMs claiming 'fraud' in the electoral process.
Old video shared as EVM protest in Maharashtra
The 16 seconds video is being shared on X with the caption when translated from Hindi reads, "remove evm, don't want BJP, Protests have started, people don't like the results of Maharashtra. #BanEVM #MaharashtraElectionResult"
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FACT-CHECK: Viral video from Delhi's Jantar Mantar in January 2024
BOOM found that the viral video dates back to January 2024 from an anti-EVM protest at Delhi's Jantar Mantar ground. The incident in the video is not from a recent protest in Maharashtra demanding for banning of EVMs.
We broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search using Google Lens, which search results showed that the same video has been shared on X back in February 2024 stating that it is from a anti-EVM protest in Delhi.
Taking a hint from that, we found video reports from January 31, 2024 stating that the protest was organised by Bharat Mukti Morcha, Ad Sanghatan, and IT Sanghatan Sanstha jointly against EVMs at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.The video report by can be seen below: