In response to a widely circulated video purporting to show vote-rigging at a Bahadurpura polling place during the most recent lok sabha elections, Telangana's top electoral officer called the footage “fake”.
“A video clip which shows the inside of a polling station with the Presiding Officer (wearing a surgical mask) is doing rounds on social media. The clip shows a person (wearing a striped dark blue round collar T shirt) standing next to a compartment. people are going into the compartment and coming out, while the person (in the blue striped T shirt) guides the persons going inside the compartment. A beep sound, like that of an EVM, is heard every time a person exits the compartment. It is being claimed that this video is from Bahadurpura AC of hyderabad PC, and it shows rigging in the polling station. It is hereby pointed out that this is an OLD VIDEO, NOT linked to the Parliamentary election in telangana or to any other election in telangana,” telangana CEO said in a press release.
The statement added the URL to the original video and stated, "Our attempts to go into the history of the video revealed that this video was shared on the YouTube channel tv9 Bangla, on february 27, 2022."
The CEO went on to say that the state's voting procedure was carried out in a free and impartial way.
It is evident from this that the film in issue is not from telangana and has nothing to do with the state's assembly or legislative elections. Furthermore, it is evident from a close listen to the audio that the language spoken in the video is not Telugu.