A video is being shared on social media claiming it as visuals of PM Narendra Modi preferring the ballot paper voting process over Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). This post claims that Narendra Modi before becoming the Prime Minister of the country called for the boycott of EVMs from the election system in India. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Old video of PM Modi supporting ballot paper voting over EVMs.
Fact: The video shared in the post is a cropped one. The video shows PM Modi’s address at the Parivatan rally held in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad in 2016. The full version of the video shows Narendra Modi praising India’s advanced electronic voting system through EVMs. Narendra Modi in his speech criticised a few developed countries including the US for implementing a ballot paper voting system in their elections. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, it is found that the video shows PM Modi’s address at the Parivartan rally held in Uttar Pradesh’s Moradabad city on 03 December 2016. ‘Narendra Modi’ YouTube channel published the complete video of this rally. At 55:08 minute of the video, PM Modi said, “Some people claim our country is poor, our people are uneducated that they don’t know anything. Brothers and sisters, when an election takes place in educated countries, ballot papers are still used for elections even today. There, the voters read the names on ballot papers and then put a stamp on them. This thing happens even in a country like America. In India, the people who they call uneducated will cast their votes by pressing buttons”.
Narendra Modi in his speech praised India’s advanced application of EVM technology in Elections. He had not supported the ballot paper voting process over EVMs. Reporting the details of PM Modi’s speech at the Parivaratan rally in Moradabad, several news websites published articles on 03 December 2016. They can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, an edited video is falsely shared as visuals of PM Modi supporting ballot paper voting over EVMs before he became the Prime Minister.
