A fake pre-poll survey predicting a huge victory for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections is viral on social media. The fake poll has been falsely attributed to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and estimates that the BJP could win between 130 - 142 seats.
BOOM found that no such survey has been conducted by the BBC on the upcoming Karnataka assembly election.
The assembly election in Karnataka is scheduled to be held on May 10, 2023, in a single phase followed by the counting of votes on May 13.
The post is being shared with the caption, "*BBC Survey: BJP will return to power in Karnataka with massive majority, Surveys say Ruling Party will win 140+ seats in Karnataka polls*"
It further predicts that the BJP could get 130 - 142 seats, Congress could get 58 - 66 seats, Janata Dal (Secular) could get 22 - 29 seats, and 1 - 3 for Others out of 224 seats. 113 seats are required for a party to get a majority and form the government.
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The message is viral on Facebook and WhatsApp which includes a URL of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in a bid to lend legitimacy to the message. However, the link (www.bbc.com%2Fhindi%2Ftopics) leads to BBC Hindi's home page.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM looked for such a survey on the BBC's websites including BBC India and BBC Hindi, but we did not find any such story or survey done by the media house.
The fake post in order to lend credibility includes a BBC URL in the post which shows the BBC logo. But on clicking the URL, it leads to BBC Hindi's home page and not to any story about such a survey.
BOOM reached out to the BBC via email, the article will be updated upon receiving a response.
BOOM also contacted the BBC and they denied having done such a survey and called it "fake". In an email response to BOOM, a BBC spokesperson said, "As you can see the survey news doesn’t appear on BBC website, I can confirm that it’s fake and BBC doesn’t conduct any election surveys."
This is not the first time fake polls have gone viral on social media claiming that the BJP is set to win. BOOM had previously debunked such a fake survey attributed to the BBC during the 2018 Karnataka assembly election.
BBC News India had then rubbished the fake survey and tweeted stating that the BBC does not commission pre-election surveys in India.