Video shows police dancing at Hindu festival, not celebrating BJP election win
- Published on May 8, 2026 at 11:46
- 2 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
Following the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the West Bengal state election, an old video of policemen dancing at a Hindu festival resurfaced in posts claiming they were celebrating the poll results. The video has circulated since September 2022 in posts about a religious procession in the western state of Maharashtra.
"Those who question the Election Commission and keep harping on about EVM (electronic voting machine) hacks, just tell me this, who hacked these policemen... who are so thrilled over the BJP victory it is as if the country gained independence today," says the Hindi-language caption of an X video shared on May 5, 2026.
Text overlaid on the video reads, "Mood after seeing Bengal election result", while a song used by the BJP during the West Bengal state election campaign is heard in the background (archived link).
It circulated after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP recorded a landslide victory in elections in opposition-held West Bengal, its first-ever electoral win in the state (archived link).
Following the election, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) -- which had ruled the state for 15 years -- and the opposition Congress party accused the Election Commission and central government agencies of rigging the vote in the BJP's favour (archived link).
The video was also shared in similar Facebook and X posts.
"The public made the police officers realise what freedom is," read a comment on one of the posts.
Another said: "The dictatorial government has ended, and today people feel free."
But the clip does not show policemen celebrating the BJP's West Bengal election victory. It was filmed four years earlier in a different state.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same footage shared on YouTube on September 10, 2022, albeit with a different audio track (archived link).
The YouTube video is titled, "Ganpati Visarjan (Immersion) Police Dance 2022 Kolhapur Part: -1". The user also uploaded a second video on September 11, 2022 (archived link).
AFP reached out to the user for comment, but did not receive a response by time of publication.
The same footage was also shared by a different user on Instagram on September 10, 2022 (archived link). A similar video was posted on YouTube by a local news outlet, showing police taking part in the festivities (archived link).
Ganpati Visarjan is a Hindu ritual that marks the end of the 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival honouring the elephant-headed deity Ganesha, when idols of the god are immersed in water (archived link).
Using shop names visible in the background of the video, AFP geolocated the footage to Kolhapur in Maharashtra (archived link).
Misinformation frequently circulates during elections, and AFP also previously debunked another false claim related to the West Bengal poll.
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