Old Video Falsely Accusing Army of Proxy Voting for BJP in 2019 Shared as Recent

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An old video show two unidentified men accusing army soldiers of casting proxy vote for the BJP.
Unidentified men falsely accusing army of proxy voting

A video showing two men interrogating a couple of army officers is going viral on X (formerly Twitter). The men are seen questioning the officers about them forcing people to vote for BJP and even alleged that they were casting proxy votes at the polling booth. This video is being shared in the context of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Congress supporter account Ravinder Kapur wrote, “Army is being used by the BJP to cast fake votes. INDIAN ARMY has been assigned to do ILLEGAL & FRAUDULENT work for the BJP. Caught RED handed inside the Election Booths to influence voters for FAKE Votes to the BJP.” (Archived link)

Fake news peddler Tanmoy wrote, “Indian Army Tarnished by Modi & His Sanghi Gang The Army is being used by the #BJP to cast Fake Votes. The #IndianArmy has been assigned the task of carrying out illegal and fraudulent work for the BJP. Caught red handed inside Election booth for influencing voters to cast Fake Votes for #BJP.”

Another fake news peddler going by the name Kavita Yadav wrote, “Modi is using the army for his dirty politics. Army soldiers were caught red handed while casting fake votes. The Indian Army has been assigned illegal and fraudulent tasks for the BJP. Modiji, have some shame, if you have lost, then accept defeat. Why are you defaming the army?” (Archived link)

The same video was also shared by other users Amock (Archived link) and Shakti Kumar Mehta (Archived link) with a claim that Army soldiers were caught casting fake votes for BJP.

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Fact Check

At the beginning of our research, after extracting different keyframes from the video and running reverse image search, we found the same video that was posted five years ago on the YouTube channel Shaan e Kashmir. Here it was revealed that the video is about almost a half decade old and has nothing to do with the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Next, we tried to get the complete context of the video by conducting keyword searches on Google. According to ANI, the video was recorded during polling on April 29, 2019. At that time, the video had gained significant traction on social media platforms, eliciting widespread disappointment regarding the purported allegations.

However, the Army immediately reacted to the video going viral and refuted the claim made by unidentified people. After this, the army had proceeded to file a complaint. In a complaint filed at the local police station on May 1, 2019, the Grenadiers Regimental Center in Jabalpur had said, “On 29 Apr 2019, day of voting for Parliament Elections, Soldiers and their spouses of The Grenadiers Regimental Centre proceeded to cast their votes on a bona fide at Booth No 146, Swamy Vivekananda Higher Secondary School, Katanga, Jabalpur. At booth no 146 when the soldiers of the Indian Army were in the process of exercising their right to vote, certain miscreants approached and snatched their voter identity cards by using criminal force and tried to obstruct them from casting their votes.”

The complaint further states that the soldiers seen in the video are the same ones who had managed to take back their voter ID cards from the miscreants and moved towards their parked vehicles. It further said that unidentified miscreants had attempted to tarnish the image of the Indian Army and its soldiers who were peacefully participating in the democratic process by circulating videos on social media falsely accusing the soldiers of influencing voters.

The army had filed a complaint against the unidentified men for snatching the voting cards of army.
Source: ANI

Additionally, in an article published in The Times of India, Lieutenant General GS Sangha of the Grenadiers Regiment had come out in support of the soldiers and alleged that the Army personnel were being used as a political tool. “The Army is not going to be cowed down by any propaganda, internal or external, be it by internal enemies or ISI of Pakistan or any other adversary,” Lt Gen Sangha wrote. He further stated, “If India starts believing that the Indian Army is favoring a particular party, God forbid, we will be no better than Pakistan.”

Lieutenant General GS Sangha came out in the support of army.
Source: TOI

Conclusion: The video of an unidentified men falsely accusing Army personnel of casting fake votes for BJP at a polling booth has nothing to do with the ongoing elections. This video was taken in Jabalpur Cantonment in 2019 when the soldiers had gone to vote with their family members where unknown miscreants tried to snatch their voting cards and tried to malign the image of the army personnel by shooting the video hurling false allegations against army.

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