Both phases of the Bihar elections have concluded with a record voter turnout of 66.91%. Amid this, a video of Union Minister Chirag Paswan, leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), being arrested is going viral on social media (here, here, and here). The post is being shared with claims that while people were pressing the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) button, the votes were actually going to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and he is being arrested for alleged vote theft. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: The video shows Union Minister Chirag Paswan being arrested for tampering with EVMs during the 2025 Bihar elections.
Fact: The viral video does not show Union Minister Chirag Paswan being arrested for tampering with EVMs during the 2025 Bihar elections. There are no credible media reports of Paswan being arrested in connection with any 2025 election-related misconduct. The video is from 15 February 2022, when he was detained in Patna during a protest march against Bihar government over unemployment and law-and-order issues. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the claim, we conducted a Google search using relevant keywords, but did not find any credible media reports supporting the claim. Considering the significance of such an incident, it would have received widespread media coverage; yet, no such reports were found.
We then performed a reverse image search of key frames from the viral video, which led us to an extended version uploaded on a YouTube channel named Live Bihar Digital Network. The video, titled “Chirag Paswan was arrested by IPS Kamyaa Mishra, watch the full video of the scuffle,” was published on 15 February 2022. This confirms that the viral video is old and unrelated to the 2025 Bihar elections.
According to multiple media reports (here, here, and here), Chirag Paswan was detained on 15 February 2022 in Patna during a protest march against the policies of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The Lok Janshakti Party leader, along with his supporters, was marching towards the Raj Bhavan as part of the protest, demanding the dismissal of the Nitish Kumar government over unemployment and poor law and order. The protest turned unruly, leading to a police lathi charge and subsequent arrests after clashes with the police.
For context, at that time, Chirag Paswan was a vocal critic of Nitish Kumar. His party, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), had contested the 2020 Bihar elections separately and not as part of the NDA. The three parties are contesting the 2025 elections together as the NDA.
To sum up, a 2022 video of Chirag Paswan’s detention is shared as showing his arrest for tampering with EVMs during the 2025 elections.
