A video of a man accusing army men of forcing people to vote for the BJP candidate is being shared on social media (here, here, and here). Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: The video shows the BJP using the Indian army personnel to cast fake votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Fact: This incident took place in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh in 2019. On 29 April 2019, soldiers and their spouses from the Grenadiers Regimental Centre went to vote at booth number 146, Swami Vivekananda Higher Secondary School, Katanga, Jabalpur, for the 2019 Parliamentary elections. Some people forcibly took their voter identity cards and tried to stop them from voting and shared videos with these false claims. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
After conducting a reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video, it was discovered that the video has been circulating since 2019 (here and here). Further investigation was conducted based on the booth number (146) and location details provided in the video, namely Cantonment Vidhan Sabha 6 in Rajiv Gandhi Nagar. This led to the identification of the location of the booth as Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh.
On further keyword search based on this clue, we found a report published by ANI (here and here) around the same time in 2019 with the same details as mentioned in the viral video. As per this report, Army officials in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, have reported an incident stating that “On 29 April 2019, during the Parliament Elections voting day, soldiers and their spouses from The Grenadiers Regimental Centre went to vote using an Army vehicle at Booth No 146, Swamy Vivekananda Higher Secondary School, Katanga, Jabalpur. Unidentified individuals attempted to take away voter ID cards from regular voters, disrupted Army personnel who were stationed in the Cantonment area, and shared videos to tarnish the reputation of the Army on 29 April 2019.”
Multiple news agencies also published reports about this incident in 2019 (here and here).
As per section 20(1) of Army Rules 1954 under Army Act 1950, “No person subject to the Act shall attend, address, or take part in any meeting or demonstration held for a party or any political purposes, or belong to or join or subscribe in the aid of, any political association or movement.” According to section 20(2) of the army rules, “No person subject to the Act shall issue an address to electors or in any other manner publicly announce himself or allow himself to be publicly announced as a candidate or as a prospective candidate for election to Parliament, the legislature of a State or a local authority, or any public body or act as a member of a candidate’s election committee, or in any way actively promote or prosecute a candidate’s interests.”
To sum up, an old video falsely accusing the BJP of using the army to obtain proxy votes is shared as recent.
