An old newspaper clipping about fake EVMs seized in Rajasthan is being falsely associated with the recent 2024 Lok Sabha elections
Against the backdrop of the recently concluded 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a newspaper clipping claiming that 66 fake EVMs were seized from a BJP leader’s residence is being widely shared across social media platforms (here, here, here, and here). The headline of the viral newspaper clipping is clearly visible, while the other text in the clipping is unclear in the viral image. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: 66 fake EVMs were seized from a BJP leader’s residence.
Fact: The viral newspaper clipping is old and dates back to 2018. It has nothing to do with the recently concluded 2024 Lok Sabha elections. According to news reports, in December 2018, police seized 66 symbolic promotional (fake) EVMs from a house in a housing board in Beawar, Ajmer, during the 2018 Rajasthan assembly elections. The name and election symbol of the independent candidate from Jaitaran, Surendra Goyal, were mentioned in the promotional material. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To gather more information about the viral newspaper clipping, we conducted a relevant keyword search that led us to several social media posts (here, here, & here)(archived link) sharing the viral newspaper clipping, which dates back to 2018.
One of the 2018 posts carried a slightly clearer version of the newspaper clipping. We noticed that the article states, ‘Police seized 66 fake EVMs from a BJP leader’s residence in Saketnagar.’ The newspaper clipping also mentions that the report is from Beawar in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district. The text above the headline reads, “It was built to attract voters in Jaitaran”. Both Jaitaran and Beawar are cities in Rajasthan.
Taking this as a cue, we conducted a relevant keyword search. This search led us to a news report carrying a similar photograph, published by the media outlet Patrika on their website on 04 December 2018. According to this news article, the police recovered ’66 symbolic promotional (fake) EVMs’ from a house in a housing board in Beawar, Ajmer. The name and election symbol of the independent candidate from Jaitaran, Surendra Goyal, were mentioned in the promotional material. ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ had also reported about this incident in 2018. Promotional EVMs are dummy EVMs used by candidates to display a model ballot unit so that voters can easily identify their name and symbol on the actual EVMs.
We then checked the election commission’s website and found that Surendra Goyal had contested from Jaitaran as an independent candidate in 2018.
According to Navbharat Times, Surendra Goyal was a Cabinet Minister in Rajasthan when BJP leader Vasundhara Raje was the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Later in 2018, Goyal was denied a party ticket, after which he resigned from the BJP and contested as an independent candidate from the Jaitaran constituency in the 2018 Rajasthan Assembly elections. From all this information, it is evident that a clipping of an old news story about 66 symbolic promotional (fake) EVMs recovered from Beawar is falsely linked to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
To sum up, an old 2018 newspaper clipping about fake EVMs seized in Rajasthan is being falsely linked to the recent 2024 Lok Sabha elections.