A video showing a group of people vandalising furniture and defacing posters has now been peddled with a misleading claim that it shows public anger towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
BOOM found that the video is from 2021. It shows a group of BJP workers attacking their party office in West Bengal's Malda district demanding a change of candidate for the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections.
The 1 minute 24 seconds video shows several people wielding BJP flags and vandalising furniture with sticks in a room. The footage also captures a woman defacing a poster kept inside the room.
The Hindi caption with the video translates to, "Someone was saying that today is the foundation day of BJP, and suddenly this video came in front of me.... See how hard the common people of the country are working with full preparation and making their important contribution by voting for BJP to win 400 seats..."
(Original Text in Hindi: कोई कह रहा था की आज भाजपा का स्थापना दिवस है , और अचानक मेरे समाने ये वीडियो आ गया.... देखिए देश की आम जनता बीजेपी को 400 सीट जितवाने में पूरी तैयारी से अपना महत्वपूर्ण योगदान के साथ साथ वोट देते हुए कितनी मेहनत से जुटी है....)
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a related keyword search in Hindi to find news reports related to the incident and found a news bulletin by India TV from 2021 carrying same visuals.
The news bulletin was uploaded on India TV's official YouTube channel on March 19, 2021. It reported that the incident happened in Malda, West Bengal, where a faction of BJP workers vandalised their party office due to their leader not receiving a ticket to contest the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections.
The same visuals can be watched from 18 seconds to 1 minute 8 seconds.
We found that Bengali outlet ABP Ananda also published a news report on March 24, 2021, featuring a screenshot from the viral video. The report stated that on March 18, 2021, the BJP announced candidates for 12 constituencies in Malda district. However, dissatisfaction arose among party members regarding the candidate selection for 6 seats.
The report further added that dissatisfaction over candidate selection led to the vandalisation of the BJP party office in Malda's Gazole, resulting in the suspension of the party's then leader, Sagarika Sarkar.
As per a report by ETV Bharat dated March 19, 2021, Sarkar alleged that the chosen BJP candidate, Chinmay Deb Barman, was involved in corruption.
On March 27, 2021, Bartaman Patrika reported that Sarkar decided to join the Trinamool Congress after her suspension for protesting against the BJP's candidate selection in the 2021 assembly polls.
