With the upcoming bypoll election in Telangana for the Jubilee Hills constituency, images of purported voter identification cards of actresses Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Rakul Preet Singh and Tamannah Bhatia have gone viral on social media.
In these voter IDs, the addresses of the three actresses have been registered in the same house alleging voter theft, a major issue raised by the opposition.
What we found: At first, we ran a relevant keyword search to check whether the three actresses were registered voters in Telangana.
However, we found visuals showing Singh and Bhatia voting in Mumbai during the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
As per a report by The Print from 20 May 2024, Bhatia voted in Mumbai and said, "It is our responsibility to cast vote."
Similarly, we found a video of Singh with her spouse, Jacky Bhagnani, uploaded by the Election Commission of India in November 2024 during the Maharashtra assembly elections.
In the clip, the celebrity couple spoke to the press and noted the importance of voting.
Team WebQoof also, found a video from April 2019 of Prabhu going to cast her vote, uploaded by NTV News. This was for the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections.
More about the Voter IDs: Additionally, the house number on all three purported voter IDs were the same that is, "8-2-120/110/4."
Team WebQoof also noted that two EPIC numbers (WKH4450729) were identical on the alleged Voter IDs of Singh and Bhatia.
We looked up the number of Election Commission of India's website and did not find any results for it.
We looked up the EPIC number on the alleged voter ID of Prabhu on the ECI's website for further verification.
We found that the number was registered with a person named, Rokkam Srinivas's voter ID. This person's assembly constituency was also Jubilee Hills.
As per India Today, the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer Syed Yahiya Kamalin, Hyderabad, confirmed these entries were fabricated using doctored images and false data, prompting police action.
The Madhura Nagar police have filed a case under sections relating to forgery and public mischief, and are tracing the origin of the posts.
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) cautioned the public against sharing unverified content and urged reliance on the Election Commission’s official sources.
Conclusion: The viral image of the voter IDs is fake and do not belong to the above mentioned actresses.
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