An image which appears to show a newly-wed couple in front of a polling booth is going viral with a claim that they returned from their honeymoon to cast their vote in the first phase of the ongoing West Bengal assembly elections.
Who shared it?: An X (formerly Twitter) premium user called 'Voice of Hindus' shared the photo with a caption that said, "I was on honeymoon, but I came back not to tolerate Dictator Mamata Banerjee as Bengal CM anymore. I voted for development, Now it's your turn to vote for Modiji. #BengalElections2026."
Is the image real?: No, the picture has been generated using the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and did not show a real visual.
How did we find that out?: We noticed that the banner in the background carried text like "West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 (Phase 1) and "Howrah District".
However, a quick perusal of Election Commission of India's press note shared on 15 March shows that people from all constituencies under the Howrah district will vote in the second phase.
This was a major discrepancy in the viral image.
Other anomalies in viral image: The banner appeared to be stuck to the wall with tape, however, it stood abnormally. If you look at the part that seems to be coming off, it doesn't seem to be natural at all. All these factors indicated towards the possibility of the image being an AI one.
What did detection tools show?: Team WebQoof ran the image on Gemini and asked it to check if the image was AI using the help of SynthID. The tool concluded that the viral photo was indeed edited or generated using Google's AI.
To add another layer of verification, we checked the image on another detection tool named 'Hive Moderation'. This tool showed over 99 percent probability of the image being an AI one.
(Swipe right to view all results.)
Gemini concluded that the image was generated using Google AI.
(Source: Gemini/Screenshot)
Conclusion: It is evident that the viral image was AI-generated and did not show a real visual.
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