Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
A viral infographic, purportedly of a survey conducted by India TV, predicts a convincing win for AAP in the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections. According to this graphic, AAP will bag 98 out of the 182 seats, BJP will win 67 and Congress 13. The post can be seen here.
The dates for the Assembly polls in Gujarat will be announced soon, with voting likely to be held in one or two phases and completed by December 4, according to a report in the Times of India.
Fact check
Newschecker first ran a keyword search for the terms “Gujarat poll India TV AAP”, which led us to this Hindi news report, dated July 31, 2022. According to the report, the India TV-Matterize Survey estimated that if Assembly elections are held now (referring to July last week), the BJP would return to power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, while its government may remain in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. In the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly, the BJP can retain power once again by winning 108 seats, while the Congress can get 55 seats and the Aam Aadmi Party would bag eight, the report projected.
We also came across this Youtube video, uploaded by India TV on July 30, 2022, in which the India TV-Matterize survey revealed that if the elections were held today (referring to July 30), BJP would win 108 seats with a vote share of 56%, Congress would bag 55 seats with a vote share of 31%, and AAP would win 16 seats with a vote share of 9%.
Both the print and video news reports by India TV contradict the numbers in the viral infographic.
We then ran a reverse image search of the viral graphic, which led us to this report by India TV, dated January 17, 2022. The report, also based on a survey, stated BJP was likely to remain the top party in the Purvanchal region, which has 124 seats out of the total 403 in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections that were held in February-March 2022. We noticed that the infographic in the article was similar to the viral one. A closer look at the fonts for the numbers indicate that the viral graphic had been edited.
Clarifying to Newschecker over email, India TV said, “We have not done any recent survey on the Gujarat elections so far. This picture [viral infographic] is photoshopped.”
Conclusion
Viral infographic on “India TV’s opinion poll”, projecting AAP’s win in the upcoming Gujarat Assembly polls was found to be fake.
Result: Altered Image
Sources
Email with India TV
India TV report, July 31, 2022
Youtube video, July 30, 2022
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
