The Twitter handle of the Indian National Congress' Chhattisgarh Pradesh Committee, falsely stated that the a candidate of the Aam Aadmi Party [AAP] has lost his deposit in the recently concluded by-poll to five seats of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MDC). The Congress won one of those seats - Chauhan Bangar - with the AAP coming in as the runner-up.
The winner, Congress' Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad, garnered 16,203 votes with the AAP's Mohammed Ishraq Khan came in second with 5,561. The total votes cast were 21,968. A candidate loses his or her security deposit if the votes secured are less than a sixth of the total votes cast, which is not the case here. The Congress handle later tweeted that AAP infact did not lose their deposit in the seat, but was on the verge of doing so.
AAP took the remaining four seats, with the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party [BJP] coming in second in each one of them.
The tweet can be seen below.
It reads :
"दिल्ली नगर निगम उपचुनाव में सत्ताधारी पार्टी AAP की एक सीट पर जमानत जब्त, वहां कांग्रेस जीती।
भाजपा=0=भाजपा".
(In Delhi Municipal bypolls, the incumbent party, AAP, forfeited their deposit on one seat, where Congress won).
The tweet thread also consists of the clarification that the AAP candidate did not end up losing his deposit.
Some other Twitter users too have used it on social media.
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FactCheck
Khan, the AAP candidate for Chauhan Bangar, did not end up losing his security deposit.
A deposit of ₹5,000 was required for candidates was required while filing their nominations (which was ₹2,500 if it was a candidate from a reserved section).
A candidate forfeits the security deposit in case they fail to garner a sixth of the total votes cast. This can be seen in past elections to the MCD, such as the general election to the municipal body in 2017, where over 70% of the 2,516 candidates that contested the election lost their deposit.
In the case of Chauhan Bangar, INC received 73.76% of the vote, while AAP won 25.31% of the vote, implying that AAP did not lose their deposit. The vote breakup can be viewed with the Delhi State Election Commission here.
This was also acknowledged by the Congress' Chhattisgarh Pradesh Committee's handle, who later tweeted:
"अभी अभी पता चला है कि होते होते बची है जमानत जब्त। वैसे सत्ताधारी पार्टी की ऐसी हालत को तो...वही कहा जायेगा"
(It was just known that the security deposit was almost lost...however, if the ruling party faces such situation, it's more or less the samef)
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