Following a humiliating defeat in the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana, along with the recently concluded by-polls in Uttar Pradesh and other states, the INDIA bloc parties have started blaming alleged EVM manipulation for their losses.
Amid this backdrop, clippings from the Hindi newspaper Hindustan have been circulating on social media, alleging EVM manipulation by the BJP. The claims suggest that in the Uttar Pradesh by-polls, BJP candidates Dharmraj Nishad from Katehari and Deepak Patel from Phulpur received 78,389 votes each, while Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates Shobhawati Verma and Mohd Mujataba Siddiqui, who lost in these constituencies, received 66,984 votes each.
Claim:
Social media users are alleging that the identical vote counts indicate EVM rigging.
An X user shared the clipping and wrote, “Look at the magic of EVMs—both winning BJP candidates received the same number of votes, while the opposition’s losing candidates also got identical votes. Is this a coincidence or collaboration?” (Archive)
Several users (here and here) shared the clippings claiming the same which can be found here. (Archive 1, Archive 2)
Investigation:
NewsMeter found that the claim is false, as official ECI data shows that the winning and losing candidates of two Assembly constituencies did not receive identical votes.
We noticed that the viral newspaper clippings from Hindustan were dated November 24, with Agra listed as the publication city.
Taking this lead, we checked the online e-paper of Hindustan and found the election results published on page 12. In Phulpur, the BJP candidate received 78,289 votes, while the SP candidate received 66,984 votes. In Katehari, the BJP candidate received 1,04,091 votes and the SP candidate secured 69,597 votes. The numbers are not the same as the claim.
Here’s a screenshot of the newspaper clipping.
We also cross-checked the figures on the Election Commission of India (ECI) website for results in Phulpur and Katehari and they match the numbers reported in the newspaper but not the claims circulating on social media.
NewsMeter contacted Manoj Parmar, Editor of the Hindustan Agra edition, regarding the viral clippings. Parmar stated, “The viral clipping has been edited by some mischievous individuals on social media.” When asked whether identical figures were misprinted in the newspaper’s hardcopy, he reiterated, “No misprinting happened; the viral clipping is edited.”
Conclusion: Claim of BJP winning candidates in Katehari and Phulpur constituencies getting equal number of votes which hints at EVM manipulation is false.
(This fact-check article was originally published by Newsmeter and has been republished by Lighthouse Journalism as a part of Shakti Collective.)
