Altered Screenshot of Opinion Poll Predicts Congress Win in Uttarakhand

The original opinion poll predicted 31-35 seats for BJP and 33-37 seats for Congress.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A screenshot of an opinion poll is being circulated online to claim that the poll has predicted a victory for the Indian National Congress (INC) in Uttarakhand, where elections were held in a single phase on 14 February.

The result for the 70-member Assembly will be declared on 10 March and as per this poll, Congress is likely to win between 46-51 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might get somewhere between 17-21 seats.

However, we found that the screenshot has been altered. The original screenshot, which is of Hindi news channel Zee News, showed 31-35 seats for BJP and 33-37 seats for Congress.

CLAIM

Two renditions of this screenshot are doing the rounds on social media. One claims to predict that Congress is likely to win 46-51 seats, while the other predicts 52-55 seats for Congress.

Archived version of the post can be seen here.

Archived version of the post can be seen here.

Several other archived version of the posts can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We noticed that the screenshot carried the logo of the Hindi news channel Zee News.

The screenshot carried the logo of Zee News. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Taking a cue from here, we looked at Zee News' YouTube channel and searched with keywords 'Opinion Poll Uttarakhand'.

We found a news bulletin from 18 January 2022, with the title "Zee Opinion Poll: Uttarakhand में किसे कितनी सीटें? | Uttarakhand Election | Harish Rawat Exclusive".

On going through the bulletin, we found the same screenshot at around one-minute mark, which predicted neck-and-neck competition between BJP and Congress and showed 31-35 seats for BJP and 33-37 seats for Congress.

The source of the survey was mentioned as Zee News and DesignBoxed.

Comparison of the two screenshot shows that the bulletin has been altered. 

(Source: Facebook/Zee News/Altered by The Quint)

Clearly, an altered bulletin is being shared to falsely claim that a survey by Zee News predicted a landslide victory for Congress.

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