Posts misrepresent video of BJP vehicles being attacked in West Bengal
- Published on October 28, 2025 at 03:37
- 2 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
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As eastern India's Bihar state -- a key electoral battleground -- gears up for polls in November, social media users have falsely claimed a video of a crowd attacking a convoy of vehicle shows public outrage against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The footage was in fact filmed in neighbouring West Bengal state.
"Countdown for BJP's end has started," reads a Hindi-language Instagram post shared on October 11, 2025.
Hindi-language text overlaid on the video reads: "BJP leader welcomed in Bihar, farmer revolutionaries of Bihar."
The clip shows a crowd hitting a vehicle in a convoy with sticks and stones before giving chase as it drives off.
The clip appeared elsewhere on Facebook and Instagram with similar claims ahead of state assembly elections in Bihar, set to begin on November 6 and scheduled to last for more than a week (archived link).
Bihar, India's poorest and third-most populous state with at least 130 million people, is a key electoral battleground, the only state in India's northern Hindi-speaking heartland where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP has never ruled alone (archived link).
Incidents of workers from different political parties clashing with each other during blitzkrieg election campaigns were reported throughout the state, but there are no credible reports of members of the public attacking BJP workers as of October 28, 2025.
A Google reverse image search found the circulating clip corresponds to a longer video shared on a Facebook page on October 8, 2025 (archived link). It can be seen at the Facebook reel's 21-second mark.
The video's caption says that Indian soldiers "were not spared" in the attack and two people were arrested in the incident. It also included a hashtag for Jalpaiguri, a district in West Bengal state, neighbouring Bihar.
Local media featured similar images of people attacking the convoy in reports about locals mobbing BJP lawmaker Khagen Murmu and leader Shankar Ghosh when they visited flood-hit parts of Jalpaiguri on October 6 (archived links here and here).
Murmu suffered serious head injuries while the windows of Ghosh's car were broken during the attack.
BJP leaders blamed the state's ruling Trinamool Congress party for orchestrating the attacks -- an accusation refuted by Trinamool (archived link).
Visual clues also indicate the incident was filmed in Jalpaiguri, not Bihar.
A sticker seen on the vandalised vehicle reads in Bengali, "Bharatiya Janata Party West Bengal". The code "WB 72" on motorcycles parked along the street belongs to vehicles registered in Jalpaiguri (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to the Bihar elections here and here.
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