A screenshot of an opinion poll is being circulated online to claim that the poll has predicted a victory for the Indian National Congress (INC) in Uttarakhand, where elections were held in a single phase on 14 February.
The result for the 70-member Assembly will be declared on 10 March and as per this poll, Congress is likely to win between 46-51 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might get somewhere between 17-21 seats.
However, we found that the screenshot has been altered. The original screenshot, which is of Hindi news channel Zee News, showed 31-35 seats for BJP and 33-37 seats for Congress.
CLAIM
Two renditions of this screenshot are doing the rounds on social media. One claims to predict that Congress is likely to win 46-51 seats, while the other predicts 52-55 seats for Congress.
Archived version of the post can be seen here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We noticed that the screenshot carried the logo of the Hindi news channel Zee News.
The screenshot carried the logo of Zee News.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
Taking a cue from here, we looked at Zee News' YouTube channel and searched with keywords 'Opinion Poll Uttarakhand'.
We found a news bulletin from 18 January 2022, with the title "Zee Opinion Poll: Uttarakhand में किसे कितनी सीटें? | Uttarakhand Election | Harish Rawat Exclusive".
On going through the bulletin, we found the same screenshot at around one-minute mark, which predicted neck-and-neck competition between BJP and Congress and showed 31-35 seats for BJP and 33-37 seats for Congress.
The source of the survey was mentioned as Zee News and DesignBoxed.
Comparison of the two screenshot shows that the bulletin has been altered.
(Source: Facebook/Zee News/Altered by The Quint)
Clearly, an altered bulletin is being shared to falsely claim that a survey by Zee News predicted a landslide victory for Congress.
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