The Election Commission of India did not say that the opposition candidate did not receive votes in the state elections.

Protests broke out in the Indian state of Maharashtra after false information was spread that the election commission had announced that the candidate representing the opposition Congress was not getting votes in the state elections in November. The false claim was fueled by widespread allegations of electoral fraud, but official records provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI) show the candidate. There is Father Rohidas Patil he received 1,057 votes in the area he ran for.

“Citizens who voted for the Congress are protesting as the results show the absence of votes for the Congress,” said a member of Parliament in India. Varsha Eknath Gaikwad he wrote on November 25 in a post on X, where he has more than 470,000 followers.

He also shared a video with a caption that he said showed Patil’s supporters protesting after the ECI allegedly got zero votes in Awadhan village in the Maharashtra elections.

A screenshot of the fake post, taken on December 9

The false claim came amid allegations of fraud by the Congress party thereafter the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The alliance won a landslide victory in the state elections, taking 235 out of 288 seats (link saved).

The Congress said it filed a complaint about what it called “obvious discrepancies” in voter data, claiming that seven million votes were recorded in the last hour of voting – which the ECI denied (archived here and here).

Patil told AFP that the video actually shows supporters being misled by false allegations that he received absentee votes in the election. and that he went to the protest site to try to reason with them.

Official records from the ECI confirmed that he got 1,057 votes in the polling stations mentioned in the false claim.

A disputed claim

Jitendra Papalkar, the Dhule district magistrate, told AFP on November 28 that records showed Patil received “more than a thousand votes” in his constituency.

“The Electoral Commission works impartially, so please avoid rumours,” he said.

Papalkar referred AFP to several Dhule authorities who rebuked the false allegations.

One of the posts published by the District Information Office in Dhule on November 26 said “rumors and misleading information about #Awadhan polling station statistics in #Dhule Rural district are being spread on social media” (link saved).

The chain added that Patil got 227, 234, 252 and 344 votes respectively in four polling stations in the village, totaling 1,057 out of 2,881 votes cast in those stations.

The Dhule Rural Registration Office also shared on November 25 the number of votes cast for each candidate at these polling stations, which is consistent with the numbers provided by the Dhule government (link saved).

A screenshot of the Dhule Rural Electoral Registration office post at X showing the voting results

Patil also told AFP that allegations that he got zero votes in Awadhan constituency are false.

“People were protesting and confused, so I went in between them and explained to them, I may have received fewer votes than I expected, but people voted for me in that booth as well,” he said.