Old Video of Man Talking to Akhilesh Yadav About EVMs Shared With a False Claim

In the video, the elderly man can be heard telling SP chief Akhilesh Yadav about EVM tampering.

The claim states that the elderly man was saying Akhilesh Yadav that "you have only built Masjids". 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A 14-second video clip that shows Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav listening to an elderly man is being shared by several social media users, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) functionaries, to claim that he reprimanded the SP chief and said 'you have only built masjids' and that he won't vote for the SP in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh polls.

However, we found that although it is being linked to the 2022 UP polls, the video is not recent and could be traced back to at least 2019. In a longer version of the video, the elderly man can be heard speaking about Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) tampering and not about "masjids" as claimed.

CLAIM

The video is being shared by Himachal Pradesh BJP in-charge Avinash Rai Khanna with the claim in Hindi that reads, "तुमने केवल मस्जिद बनवाई' ताऊ ने अखिलेश के सामने कहा हम वोट नहीं देंगे!!"

[Translation: 'You have only built Masjids', uncle tells Akhilesh Yadav that he won't cast his vote (to SP).]

An archive of the link can be seen here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The viral video has also been shared by UP BJP social media co-convenor Saurabh (here), state in-charge of BJP Haryana Arun Yadav (here). Other archived links on Facebook can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

With the help of InVid, a video verifiation tool, we extracted several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.

One of the keyframes led us to a 26-second video on Facebook posted by one user on 3 September 2021. In the video at 13-second, the elderly man can be heard saying 'change the machine'. The video has 14,000 views.

Next, we conducted a keyword search in Hindi on Facebook and found a longer version of the video.

In the 1:06 minute video posted by a user on 30 July 2020, the caption in Hindi read that the elderly man showered praise on Yadav.

In the video from 12-second, the elderly man can be seen calling Akhilesh Yadav and saying that EVMs must be changed, else SP can't come to power.

"Listen kid, everything is fine, but that machine (EVM), set that on fire, I am telling you, set it on fire. I am tired of casting my votes. All votes go to the machine. And, if you don't change the machine, then the SP government can't come to power and the votes that you must get, you wouldn't even get that," the elderly man can be heard saying to Yadav.

We also found another video on Facebook, searching with keywords in Hindi, that was posted on 12 November 2019, thereby proving that the video is not recent, although it is being linked to the polls that is set to begin on 10 February.

While we were not able to find the exact source of the video, it is clear that the elderly man was speaking about EVM tampering and not about "masjids".

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