No, This Isn’t A Polling Officer Alleging Voter Fraud in Bihar
The woman in the viral video is actually Rashmi Borasi, the daughter of Congress leader Guddu from MP’s Indore.
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A video of a woman alleging fraud in the counting of votes has gone viral with the false claim that she is a polling officer calling out the recently concluded election process in Bihar as “rigged.”
We found that the video actually shows Rashmi Borasi, the daughter of Congress leader Premchand Guddu from Madhya Pradesh's Indore. The video was shot on 10 November when bypoll took place in MP.
Borasi, who had gone as Guddu’s election agent to overlook the process, alleged that the counting was biased towards the BJP at the Sanwer seat, where her father was contesting.
CLAIM
The video was shared by Congress leader Vijay Singh, a Member of Legistlative Council from Karnataka's Bidar, with the caption, “Listen to this polling officer. The entire electoral process is rigged. Seems this is how NDA got back to power in Bihar by rigging election. Entire democracy is in danger, high time we raise our voices against BJP.”
The video was also shared by users with the caption,
“#भाजपा_की_बिहार_चुनावी_जीत के हथकंडे, सुनिए इस मतगणना अधिकारी को Evm के अलावा कैसे जुगाड करती है (sic).”
(Translation: “Tactics of BJP's win in Bihar, listen to this polling officer on fixes other than EVM.”)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
The woman can be heard saying the name Sudarshan Gupta at around one minute into the viral video. A keyword search of the same revealed that he is a BJP leader from MP’s Indore.
We then did a keyword search of “इंदौर मतगणना” (Translation: “Indore Vote Counting”) on Facebook, and came across the same video, uploaded by another user but about 10 seconds longer than the viral video.
The video was captioned, “इंदौर की साँवेर सीट का हाल- पहले लोकतंत्र की हत्या और अब मतगणना में धांधली..! मध्यप्रदेश में बीजेपी को इस तरह से जीत मिली है |”
(Translation: “The condition of Sanwer seat of Indore - First murder of democracy and now rigging in counting! BJP has won this way in Madhya Pradesh.”)
A keyword search of the same led us to the original video uploaded by MP Congress' Twitter account on 10 November.
At the end of the video, the woman identifies herself as Rashmi Borasi.
A keyword search of the same led us to an ANI article, stating that counting was paused for an hour during the MP bypolls due to allegations of “mismanagement and unfair conduct against the polling officials by the Congress.”
The article also carries the exact quote by Borasi, in English.
“The counting process was done unfairly. We are going to approach the high court and challenge the decision,” he added.
An ANI video of Congress supporters creating a ruckus and Guddu’s son, Ajit Borasi, claiming that the counting has been rigged was also reported by the Times of India.
Evidently, Rashmi Borasi has been misidentified as a polling officer in a viral video where she is making allegations of voter fraud in MP’s bypolls.
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