Video shows BJP candidate chased by mob in West Bengal in 2021, not in Madhya Pradesh in 2023
- Published on November 24, 2023 at 07:53
- 4 min read
- By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India
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"Even before the voting begins in Madhya Pradesh, the public have given the results. They are driving out the ruling leaders in Madhya Pradesh. Watch the full video and share it," reads the Hindi-language caption of a video shared here on X, formerly Twitter, on November 14, 2023.
State elections in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh took place on November 17, and local media reported that the votes will be counted on December 3 (archived link).
The video, which has been shared more than 2,000 times, shows a man flanked by security personnel walking towards a vehicle while an angry mob can be heard approaching. As he enters the vehicle and is driven away, the mob catches up, strikes the vehicle with wooden sticks and smashes the rear windshield.
The video was also shared elsewhere on X here, as well as on Facebook here and here with similar claims.
But the video does not show a mob chasing away a BJP candidate in Madhya Pradesh; it in fact shows an incident that occurred in a different state more than two years earlier.
Video from West Bengal
A combination of reverse image and keyword searches on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to a longer version of the clip uploaded to the official Facebook page of local news outlet Nandighosha TV here on April 29, 2021 (archived link).
The 30-second clip used in the false posts corresponds to the portion of the Nandighosha TV video that begins at its 15-second mark. Nandighosha TV's logo can be seen in the top-right corner of the falsely shared video.
The Odia-language caption of the Nandighosha TV video reads: "The villagers chased the BJP candidate out of the village.
"The final round of elections is going on in West Bengal. People protested against BJP candidate Anirban Ganguly in Ilambazar Dharampur of Birbhum district. The local people threw fists at the BJP candidate and chased him out of the village."
Anirban Ganguly, a member of the BJP's National Executive Committee, stood in the 2021 assembly elections for West Bengal’s Bolpur constituency (archived links here and here). He finished as runner-up to a candidate from the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) party.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in the false posts (left) and the Nandighosha TV video (right):
At the 33-second mark of the Nandighosha TV video, the licence plate of the car that Ganguly steps into is briefly visible.
A closer analysis of the plate shows it is prefixed with "WB", which stands for West Bengal.
Examples on the specialist License Plates of the World website show that licence plates in India are prefixed with letters denoting where the vehicle is registered (archived link).
The video was also uploaded to Nandighosha TV's official YouTube channel here., as well as the official YouTube channel of the Sangbad Pratidin newspaper here (archived links here and here).
According to a news report published by ABP Live, Ganguly was attacked during his visit to a state assembly polling station on April 29, 2021 (archived link).
Ganguly posted on X on the same day that he had been attacked in Ilambazar, in West Bengal (archived link).
Ganguly also responded to an X post that was sharing the clip in February 2022 by saying that it showed an attack on him in West Bengal in April 2021 (archived link).
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