A 2012 video of CM Yogi extending monetary support to crop damage victims shared with a false claim of him bribing voters in the 2025 Bihar elections
The first phase of the Bihar elections has come to a close. With the second phase scheduled to be held today (11 November 2025), a video is going viral on social media (here, here, and here) claiming to show Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath openly buying votes by giving money in Bihar for the 2025 Assembly elections, while alleging that the Election Commission is not taking any action. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: The video shows U.P. CM Yogi Adityanath openly buying votes by distributing money in Bihar for the 2025 Assembly elections.
Fact: The viral video is old and unrelated to the 2025 Bihar Assembly elections. The visuals date back to 2012, when Yogi Adityanath was handing over monetary support to farmers whose crops were damaged in a fire during his tenure as the MP from Gorakhpur. There are no recent reports of him handing over cash to voters in Bihar. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of key frames from the viral video led us to one of our fact-checked articles from February 2022, in which we debunked the same clip when it had gone viral with the false claim that it showed Yogi Adityanath bribing voters with cash during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. As per that article, the visuals actually date back to 2012, when Yogi Adityanath was handing over monetary support to victims of crop damage caused by a fire accident.
The video was originally shared on 21 April 2012 on YouTube by a user named Vinay Kumar Gautam; however, the clip is currently not available on his channel. At that time, when the video first went viral, the Quint fact-check team reached out to Vinay, who confirmed that the visuals show Yogi Adityanath handing over monetary compensation to farmers whose crops were burnt, during his tenure as the MP from Gorakhpur.
Furthermore, there are no recent reports of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath handing over cash for votes in Bihar for the 2025 Assembly elections. Although we could not independently verify the complete context of the visuals, the available evidence suggests that this is an old video that has no connection to the ongoing 2025 Bihar Assembly elections.
To sum up, a 2012 video of CM Yogi extending monetary support to crop damage victims is being shared with a false claim of him bribing voters in the 2025 Bihar elections.