2017 video is being shared as recent visuals of burka-clad women caught casting fake votes in UP elections - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
February 17, 2022
A video is being shared on social media claiming it as recent visuals of Muslim supporters of the Samajwadi Party caught while casting fake votes in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh Elections. This video shows a woman accusing a group of burka-clad women of carrying fake Aadhar cards and casting fake votes in an election. Sharing the video, this post alleges that the ongoing Hijab controversy was intentionally created to cast fake votes and make SP win in the UP elections. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of burka-clad women who tried to cast fake votes in favour of Samajwadi Party in the ongoing 2022 UP Assembly elections.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows old visuals related to the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Municipal Corporation elections. This video shows the visuals of Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) candidate Shaila Khan seizing fake Aadhar cards from a group of burka-clad women who tried to cast votes in a municipal election polling booth in Rampur. The video shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the ongoing 2022 UP elections. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On listening to the voice carefully at the initial seconds of the video, we could hear the lady who seized fake Aadhar cards from burka-clad women describing herself as the BSP candidate Shaila Khan. When we searched for this video using these keywords, a video with similar visuals was found posted on Facebook by a BJP worker on 28 November 2017. Sharing the video, he mentioned that Rampur’s BSP candidate Shaila Khan had caught four women while casting fake votes using forged Aadhar cards. A few YouTube channels have also published this video with a similar description.
On searching for further details using keywords and time filters, it is found out that BSP had nominated Shaila Khan as their candidate for the Rampur Municipal Chairman elections held in November 2017. Reporting this news, several news websites published articles in 2017. A few public rally meetings and interviews of Shaila Khan as part of the Rampur Municipal elections can be seen here and here.
The BSP poster of Shaila Khan for the 2017 Rampur Municipal elections can be seen here. We could not find any news report that identifies the burka-clad women who were caught by Shaila Khan as supporters of the Samajwadi Party, while such a possibility cannot be ruled out. All these pieces of evidence indicate that the video shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the ongoing 2022 UP elections.
To sum it up, an old video related to the 2017 UP Municipal Corporation elections is shared as recent visuals of burka-clad women caught casting fake votes in UP Assembly elections.