After phase 1 of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections concluded in some states, a video surfaced on social media (here, here, and here), claiming that “In Nagpur, a man threw ink on an EVM machine and raised slogans against EVM machines.” Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: In Nagpur, this man threw ink on EVM machines and raised slogans against EVMs during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Fact: This video is old and is from an incident that occured during the Maharashtra Assembly elections in 2019. Five years ago, during the Thane voting, BSP leader Sunil Khambe threw ink on the EVM and protested against the machines. This has no connection with the 2024 polls. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On performing a reverse image search using the keyframes of the viral video, we found the same video published by ABP News on 21 October 2019 with the title, ‘BSP leader throws ink on EVM and chants EVM murdabad slogans.’ As per the description of the video, in Thane, a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader, Sunil Khambe threw ink on the EVM at a polling booth while voting for Maharashtra Assembly Polls.
On further research, we found news reports about the same incident (here and here). While sharing the viral video, these reports mentioned that ‘A Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) worker on Monday threw ink on an electronic voting machine (EVM) at a polling booth in Maharashtra’s Thane district. As he was being bundled away by the police, he shouted slogans against EVMs, demanding they be replaced by ballot papers.’ This video is not from Nagpur and has no connection with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
To sum up, an old video depicting a man throwing ink and chanting slogans against EVMs in Thane in 2019 is shared as a recent incident.
