Protests broke out in the Indian state of Maharashtra after disinformation spread that the election commission had declared that a candidate from the opposition Congress party had not received votes in November’s state elections. The false claim was fueled by broader allegations of poll fraud, but official data from the Election Commission of India (ECI) shows that the candidate Kunalbaba Rohidas Patil received 1,057 votes in the village where he ran.
“Villagers who voted for Congress are protesting as results show no votes for Congress,” Indian opposition lawmaker said Varsha Eknath Gaikwad wrote in a Nov. 25 post on X, where she has more than 470,000 followers.
She again shared a video with a caption saying that Patil’s supporters protested after the ECI reportedly said he got zero votes in Awadhan village in the Maharashtra elections.
Screenshot of the fake post, taken on December 9
The false claim came to light amid allegations of fraud by the Congress party afterward of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). alliance won a landslide victory in the state elections, winning 235 of the 288 seats (archived link).
The Congress said it had filed a complaint over what it called “glaring discrepancies” in the voter turnout data, claiming that seven million votes were registered in the last hour after voting – which the ECI denied (archived here and here ).
Patil told AFP that the video really 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 protest site to talk to them.
Official documents from the ECI confirm that he got 1,057 votes in the polling stations mentioned in the false claim.
Disputed claim
Jitendra Papalkar, district magistrate of Dhule district, told AFP on November 28 that official data shows Patil received “more than a thousand votes” in his constituency.
“The Election Commission works with complete impartiality, so please avoid rumours,” he said.
Papalkar referred AFP to several messages from Dhule authorities rebuking the false claim.
One of the notices published by the District Information Office in Dhule on November 26 stated that “rumors and misleading information about #Awadhan polling station statistics in #Dhule Rural constituency are being spread on social media” (archived link).
The thread added that Patil got 227, 234, 252 and 344 votes respectively at the four polling stations in the village, making a total of 1,057 votes out of 2,881 votes cast at those polling stations.
The Dhule Rural Electoral Registration Office also shared the vote count of each candidate in these polling stations on November 25, which matched the Dhule government’s figures (archived link).
Screenshot of the Dhule Rural Electoral Registration Office’s post on
Patil also told AFP that the claim that he got zero votes in Awadhan village was false.
“People were protesting in confusion, so I went over and explained to them: I may have gotten fewer votes than I expected, but people voted for me in that booth too,” he said.
