A voter was reportedly arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police on Sunday in connection with a viral video purportedly showing him casting multiple votes in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate at a polling booth.
The accused, identified as one Rajan Singh, was arrested after several leaders of the opposition parties, including Congress and Samajwadi Party, shared the video of the incident on the microblogging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
In the two-minute-long video doing the rounds on social media, the voter can be seen voting on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) at least eight times for BJP candidate, Mukesh Rajput, who as per the party's list is the Lok Sabha election candidate from the Farrukhabad seat.
The incident is found to have been taken place in Aliganj assembly constituency that comes under Etah district, Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said.
Outlook India could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
Following the revelation, an FIR was filed at the Naya Gaon police station based on a complaint by ARO Prateet Tripathi, an indiatoday.in report said.
The case has reportedly been registered under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and other relevant laws, including IPC Section 171F (offense related to elections), IPC Section 419 (punishment for cheating by personation), Sections 128, 132, and 136 of the Representation of the People Act (related to maintaining the secrecy of voting, fraud at elections, and other election offenses) and others.
The Election Commission also took cognisance of the matter and directed authorities concerned to take action. "Cognizance of the circulating video has been taken. Concerned District Election Officer has been directed to take prompt and effective action," Chief Election Officer, Uttar Pradesh said.
The poll panel has also directed authorities to suspend and institute disciplinary proceedings against all official present at the polling booth when the incident took place.
The crackdown came soon after the Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) shared the video of the incident on X (formerly known as Twitter) and sought action from the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Congress and Samajwadi Party took to X and posted the video, demanding action. "Dear Election Commission, do you see this? One person is voting 8 times. It's time to wake up," Congress wrote on X.
"If the Election Commission feels that this is wrong, they should certainly take some action, otherwise... BJP's booth committee is actually a loot committee," . Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said.
"Is this a fair election? @ECISVEEP @ceoup Reply! We have been saying from the beginning that the Election Commission is working at the behest of the BJP, openly getting fraudulent things done in favour of the BJP, all this is bound to be investigated and action taken, the truth cannot be hidden, the answer to dishonesty will be strict legal action, the Election Commission should also know this!" Samajwadi Party media cell wrote on X.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said on Monday, "Last evening, a video went viral which showed a youth casting his vote on an EVM multiple times...It was probed and it was found to be a video from Farrukhabad Lok Sabha constituency. It is specifically from a village in Aliganj Assembly constituency that comes under Etah district."
The youth was identified and FIR was registered under sections of Representation of People Act, IPC and Information Technology Act, Rinwa said, adding that he has been arrested and suspension and departmental action on the polling party of that booth has been decided.
Re-election has been recommended to the Election Commission, the officer said
