Protests erupted in the Indian state of Maharashtra after false information spread that the Election Commission had named a candidate from the opposition Congress party who did not receive votes in state elections in November. The false claim was fueled by wider allegations of fraud in the polls, but official records provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI) show the candidate Kunalbaba Rohidas Patil he received 1,057 votes in the town where he was running.
“The villages that voted for the Congress are protesting because the results showed no votes for the Congress,” an Indian opposition lawmaker Varsha Eknath Gaikwad he wrote in November 25 mail on X, where she has over 470,000 followers.
She re-shared a video with captions saying it shows Patil's supporters protesting after the ECI said he got zero votes in the village of Awadhan in the Maharashtra elections.
A screenshot of the fake post, taken on December 9
The liar application surface amid subsequent allegations of fraud by the Congress party ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). alliance won landslide victory in the state election, taking 235 out of 288 seats (archive link).
Congress said yes to file complained about what he called “glaring discrepancies” in voter turnout data, claiming that seven million votes were registered within the last hour of voting – given by the ECI to deny (archive here and here).
Patil told AFP that the video actually shows a demonstration by supporters who were misled by the false claim that he got zero votes in the polls, and that he had traveled to the site of the complaint to try to reason with them.
Official records from the ECI confirmed that he got 1,057 votes at the polling stations mentioned in the fake application.
A controversial claim
Jitendra Papalkar, district magistrate of Dhule district, told AFP on November 28 that official records show that Patil received “more than a thousand votes” in his constituency.
“The Electoral Commission works with complete impartiality, so avoid rumours,” he said.
Papalkar referred AFP to several posts by Dhule authorities that countered the false claim.
One of the mail published by the District Information Office in Dhule on November 26 states that “rumors and false information about #Awadhan polling station statistics in #Dhule Rural constituency are being spread on social media” (archive link).
The thread said Patil got 227, 234, 252 and 344 votes respectively at the four polling stations in the town, a total of 1,057 ballots out of the 2,881 cast at those stations.
Also Dhule Rural Electoral Registration Office divided on November 25 the vote tally of each candidate at these polling stations, which was in accordance with the numbers provided by the Dhule government (archive link).
Screenshot of the Dhule Rural Electoral Registration office post on X showing the election results
Patil also told AFP that the claim that he got zero votes in Awadhan village was false.
“People were complaining with confusion so I went among them and explained to them, maybe I had less votes than I expected but people voted for me in that booth too,” said e.
