A news clip is going viral on social media (here, here, and here) claiming that a CNN survey ranked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the fourth most corrupt political party in the world. The clip also alleges that the Pakistan Muslim League tops the list. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: A CNN survey ranked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the fourth most corrupt political party in the world.
Fact: CNN did not conduct any survey on corrupt political parties. The viral news clip has been digitally edited and fabricated. In the past as well, fake surveys have circulated on social media in the names of organisations such as BBC, FOX, and CNN. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the claim, we conducted a Google search using relevant keywords, but found no credible reports or reliable sources confirming that CNN conducted any survey on corrupt political parties. If a reputed organisation like CNN had carried out such a survey, it would have been widely reported and found a mention on the CNN website. However, we found none.
We also reviewed CNN’s official website and social media handles (here, here, and here), but found no reports supporting this claim. While CNN has previously published articles on the world’s most corrupt countries based on reports by organisations such as Transparency International, there is no survey by CNN ranking the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the fourth most corrupt political party in the world. Moreover, the news clip shared in the post does not mention the name of the news agency or the date, indicating that it is not authentic and may have been digitally edited.
The same claim has been circulating for several years. When it went viral in 2023, we published a Telugu fact-check article debunking the claim. In the past, multiple fake surveys targeting various political parties have gone viral on social media. For instance, a fabricated survey attributed to the BBC falsely claimed that parties such as the YSR Congress Party, the Telugu Desam Party, and the BJP were among the most corrupt, while another fake survey attributed to FOX News alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the second most corrupt Prime Minister in the world.
At the time, Geeta Pandey, the Women and Social Affairs Editor for BBC News Online in India, clarified in an X post that the claim was fake.
To sum up, CNN did not conduct any survey ranking the BJP as the fourth most corrupt political party in the world.
