Authors
Sabloo Thomas has worked as a special correspondent with the Deccan Chronicle from 2011 to December 2019. Post-Deccan Chronicle, he freelanced for various websites and worked in the capacity of a translator as well (English to Malayalam and Malayalam to English). He’s also worked with the New Indian Express as a reporter, senior reporter, and principal correspondent. He joined Express in 2001.
Claim
BJP distributing cash for votes in Karnataka.
Fact
Video is from Telangana’s Huzurabad assembly constituency and is from 2021
A video purportedly showing cash being distributed to voters ahead of the upcoming Karnataka elections is being widely circulating on social media. The video shows a woman holding an envelope with the ruling BJP’s symbol on it, and pulls out a wad of ₹2,000 notes. However, the video has been found to be misleading as it is not related to the Karnataka elections but is actually from Telangana’s Huzurabad and dates back to 2021.
The video is circulating as the legislative assembly elections are scheduled to be held in Karnataka on May 10,2023.
Archived versions of such posts can be seen here and here.
Fact Check/Verification
On reverse image search, we found several posts from 2021 that indicated that the video claiming to show BJP distributing money in exchange of vote was in fact from Huzurabad By-poll in Telangana held in 2021.
Here is one such post by India Ahead News, shared on October 29, 2021 on their official twitter page.
@IndiaAheadNews’s Tweet
We further conducted a ‘Google Lens’ search of the photo of the person on the envelope, containing the currency notes in the viral video, and found that it showed BJP leader Eatala Rajender.
On key word search, we also found a tweet by MD Kareem, general secretary, of the social media department, of the Indian National Congress, Karnataka dated October 28, 2021 with a similar video. In the tweet Kareem accused, that, “World’s richest party BJP is giving 10,000 rupees per vote in Huzurabad, Telangana and people still think BJP doesn’t do corruption.”
Though the video was different from the viral video, we saw that it showed the same envelope, carrying the picture of Eatala Rajender.
According to a Hindustan Times report of November 2, 2021, Huzurabad MLA and minister Etala Rajendra was removed from the Telangana cabinet following allegations of land grabbing. Following this, Rajendra resigned in June. This resulted in a by-elections. Rajender left the TRS and joined the BJP and sought re-election on the BJP’s ticket. He won the election by a margin of 90,533 votes. Thus we concluded that the alleged video of BJP distributing money in exchange for vote is not from the Karnataka.
Conclusion
We could thus conclude that the viral video allegedly showing BJP distributing money for vote in Karnataka was actually from Telangana.
Result: False
Sources
Tweet by India Ahead News on October 29, 2021
News report by Hindustan Times on November 2,2021
Tweet by MD Kareem on on October 28 2021
Official Facebook page of Eatala Rajender
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Authors
Sabloo Thomas has worked as a special correspondent with the Deccan Chronicle from 2011 to December 2019. Post-Deccan Chronicle, he freelanced for various websites and worked in the capacity of a translator as well (English to Malayalam and Malayalam to English). He’s also worked with the New Indian Express as a reporter, senior reporter, and principal correspondent. He joined Express in 2001.
