Inquiry ordered after videos claiming bogus voting go viral

Gujarat election authorities ordered an inquiry Wednesday after two videos, allegedly indicating that bogus voting took place at a booth in Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency, surfaced on social media.

BJP chief Amit Shah is contesting from Gandhinagar.

Preliminary inquiry into one of the videos which went viral Tuesday evening suggested that there was no bogus voting.

However, after one more video came out, Gandhinagar collector and district election officer S K Langa sought a detailed report from election officials of Sanand tehsil.

Voting for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat was held on April 23.

In one of the videos, a person wearing white trousers and shirt is seen signing documents placed on a table inside a room which appears to be a polling booth.

It went viral on social media with the claim that bogus voting took place at Bapupura booth in Sanand tehsil.

Congress MLA from Gandhinagar, C J Chavda, who is contesting against Shah, sent the video to Langa.

"As soon as I received the video from Chavda yesterday, I sought a report from Sanand Sub Divisional Magistrate. The SDM told me there was no concrete evidence to prove that such an incident took place at Bapupura yesterday. The SDM said either the video was fake or it was from a past election," Langa told reporters.

"Today, I have received another video clip of the alleged incident. So I asked the assistant returning officer of Sanand to conduct a detailed inquiry to check authenticity of these clips. I have also asked local police to conduct an inquiry to find out the place, time and date on which these videos were shot," he said.

Chavda said he himself was not sure if the video indicated that bogus voting was going on, but since it went viral, he forwarded it to the district election officer to find out the truth.