As Delhi went to polls on Wednesday, altered news bulletins of ABP News and Aaj Tak surfaced with false claims that the news outlets aired opinion polls predicting a landslide victory for Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Arvind Kejriwal.
Both ABP News and India Today Group, the parent company of Aaj Tak, have called out the fake polls. BOOM also found that the ABP News video has been manipulated using a fake audio generated with AI technology.
AAP leaders including Gaurav Singh and Sakshi Gupta posted the doctored ABP News video on X with the caption, "ABP survey predicts 58 to 60 seats for Aam Aadmi Party; AAP- 58-60 seats, BJP - 10-12 seats, Congress - 0; Key findings from the survey: Delhiites are voting against goons; Nearly 75% women are voting for Kejriwal; The magic is intact, Kejriwal is returning."
The X posts have since been deleted.
Click here and here for archives of the X posts.
Below is a Facebook post with the fake opinion poll from Aaj Tak.
Both the doctored videos claim that AAP is set to secure between 56 and 60 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will get 10 - 14 seats. The videos also predict a no-show for the Congress party and a smooth victory for Kejriwal with him forming the Delhi government for the fourth time.
Fact Check
BOOM was able to ascertain that both the news bulletins have been doctored. There are several anomalies in the bulletins including absence of the ticker, breaking news slug and the time stamp; we also spotted some spelling errors in the fake Aaj Tak clip.
ABP News clip
In an X post ABP news called out the video and stated that no such opinion poll has been conducted by the news organisation.
We found the original video from January 22, 2025, which shows anchor Pooja Sachdeva hosting a show on Delhi Assembly elections. In the bulletin, Sachdeva does not predict the victory of AAP or Kejriwal.
ABP News Audio likely AI generated
BOOM extracted the audio of the ABP News bulletin and tested it using an AI Voice detection tool. According to the results the audio seems to be generated or modified using AI with very little match with live human markers.
Aaj Tak news clip
BOOM watched the video carefully and found some textual inaccuracies in the video. The word Congress is misspelt in the video and the fonts of the graphics are different from the stylesheet of Aaj Tak. In the video, Aaj Tak anchor Saeed Ansari can be heard saying, "If elections are held today, Congress will get zero seats." Ansari clarified to Aaj Tak that it is not his voice. India Today also issued a clarification and stated that no such exit polls have been conducted for Delhi
