By Anmol Alphonso
An old video report about an opinion poll by ABP news predicting a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) victory in the 2017 Himachal Pradesh assembly election has been edited to make the false claim that the channel predicted a win for Congress in the upcoming polls in the state.
The Assembly election in Himachal Pradesh is scheduled to be held on November 12, 2022, with counting on December 8, 2022.
The viral video shows an ABP news anchor talking about an opinion poll that predicts that the BJP would get 22 - 28 seats, 39 - 45 seats for Congress and 0-3 seats for Others - all out of a total of 68 seats. Thirty-five seats are required for a party to get a majority and form the government.
The edited video is being shared with the caption when translated reads, "Congress is coming once again in the land of Dev!"
(In Hindi - "कांग्रेस दोबारा एक बार फिर आ रही है देव भूमि में")
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The same edited video is being shared on Facebook with the false claim.
Also Read:Fake Opinion Poll Predicts Close Fight Between AAP, BJP In Gujarat
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral video has been edited and the visuals in the original ABP news video from October 31, 2017, had predicted a BJP victory in the 2017 Himachal Pradesh assembly election.
We found that in the edited video the text showing the party name - BJP and Congress - have been edited and swapped to make the false claim.
Also the voice over of the anchor in the video has been edited to match the edited visuals supporting the claim that ABP news opinion poll predicting a Congress victory.
In the original video report which is from October 2017, we can see the same anchor and graphics predicting a BJP victory. The ABP News opinion poll released back then had given 22 - 28 seats for the Congress, 39 - 45 seats for the BJP and 0-3 for others.
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Additionally, even the anchor states at the beginning of the video that the opinion poll predicts a BJP win in the state and the same has been removed from the viral video.
A comparison of the graphics showing the seat wins in the edited viral video and the original video can be seen below.
ABP News in its recent opinion poll released on October 14, 2022, has again predicted a BJP victory in Himachal Pradesh, estimating 38-46 seats for the BJP, 20-28 seats for the Congress, and 0-1 seats for others.
(Note: Opinion polls need to be taken with a pinch of salt as they only offer only an indication of voting trends and can be wrong.)
BOOM has previously debunked several graphics of opinion polls either edited or completely made up that were circulating on social media with false claims predicting a victory for a particular party in the upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Also Read:Gujarat Elections 2022: Opinion Poll Graphics Predicting AAP Win Are Fake
