Fact Check: This video is from 2019 and DOESN’T show soldiers promoting BJP at poll booths

A video of soldiers being publicly called out for allegedly asking people to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party has been widely shared. In it, a man in a white shirt can be seen interrogating soldiers standing beside a military vehicle.

The man in a white shirt said, “They were asking people to press button number 1 to ensure BJP’s victory.” The man recording the video then said, “They were promoting the BJP inside the polling booth.” They also accused the soldiers of bringing people to cast proxy votes, adding that when the general public objected, they (the soldiers) had to run away.

Those sharing the video used hashtags like “BIG BREAKING” and “LokSabhaElection2024”. An X user wrote, “Indian Army Tarnished by Modi & His Sanghi Gang. The Army is being used by the #BJP to cast Fake Votes. The Indian Army has been assigned the task of carrying out illegal and fraudulent work for the BJP. Caught red-handed inside Election booth for influencing voters to cast Fake Votes for #BJP.” Its archivecan be seen here.

India Today found that the video in question dates back to 2019 and has nothing to do with the ongoing elections. At that time, the Indian Army filed a complaint against the people who created this video, alleging that they were trying to defame it. The complaint stated that people also tried to stop some soldiers posted at the Jabalpur cantonment from casting their votes.

OUR PROBE

We observed “Jabalpur” written on the army vehicle seen in the viral video. Some social media users also pointed out that this incident from Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur happened in 2019.

Based on these clues, a keyword search led us to an ANI post on X from May 1, 2019. Per this tweet, army officials in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, filed a complaint against unidentified miscreants for trying to snatch voter ID cards of general voters, obstructing soldiers from voting, and circulating videos to defame the Indian Army.

According to this complaint, this incident happened on April 29, 2019, when soldiers and their spouses of the Grenadiers Regimental Centre went to cast their votes at Booth No 146 at the Swamy Vivekananda Higher Secondary School in Katanga, Jabalpur.

The Times of India reported this incident, and The Quint fact-checked a similar viral claim at the time as well.

The Quint report contained an Indian Army statement that said that the soldiers “rung up Commandant when they were videographed and he told them not to get into any altercation and exercise their right of franchise and get back peacefully”, adding that a “total of 1,386 application for all ranks and dependents were applied from the Centre to ECI as General Voter ID Cards, out of which, 1304 voted today”. The Army also clarified that the heavy vehicles seen in the video were provided to facilitate the movement of troops and families to vote.

In light of the video going viral again amid the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Indian Amry issued another statement: “In the light of recent Lok Sabha Elections, an old video of year 2019 is being circulated on Social Medial Platforms with a malicious intent to defame Indian Army. The video is of last elections wherein troops from The Regimental Centre had collectively gone to cast their votes. This was propaganda spread by a few persons at that time.”

The statement further said, “Necessary rebuttal was issued post investigating the facts. The video has again resurfaced backed and being circulated with malicious intent. Everyone is requested not to pay attention to this message as the same may lead to projection of incorrect image of the Army.”

Thus, it is clear that the viral claim is false.