Political analyst Yogendra Yadav's video on 2019 exit polls shared as recent

By: Umme Kulsum
June 4 2024

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Screenshot of a post claiming Yogendra Yadav reacted to 2024 Lok Sabha election’s exit polls in viral video. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

What is the claim?

Ahead of the announcement of the results of the Indian general elections, a 46-second clip featuring political analyst, psephologist, and leader of the Swaraj Abhiyan party, Yogendra Yadav, is being widely shared on social media.

In the video, Yadav can be seen saying, "The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is one step forward in this election. I always distinguish between my personal wish and my assessment. My party and I have always believed that another BJP term would be very harmful to the country, but the reality is that the Opposition is ineffective. Two things have become evident: The ineffectiveness of the Opposition and the biased behavior of the news media. These factors have clearly favored the BJP, leading to the results we are witnessing (translated from Hindi)."

An X (formerly Twitter) user shared the clip with a Hindi caption that translated to, "Look, these too have melted, even before the results. Now speaking: Useless opposition, one-sided election...What will you do with them now (sic)?" One post sharing the video with this caption was viewed over 1,73,000 times at the time of writing this story. Archived versions of more such posts can be viewed here and here.

The video has also gained traction on Facebook (archived here).

Screenshot of the posts. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, Logically Facts found that this video is not recent. The video is of an interview Yadav gave to news outlet The Quint during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. It must be pointed out that for the 2024 elections, Yadav has predicted (archived here) that the BJP will not cross the halfway mark (272). 

What did we find?

On conducting a reverse image search on one of the keyframes of the viral clip, we found a longer version of the video published on May 19, 2019, on The Quint's official YouTube channel (archived here). 

In the video, Yadav is asked by the news outlet's reporter for his reaction to the exit polls and the BJP's dependence on its allies post the result announcement. At the 2:55 mark here, Yadav can be heard discussing the BJP's dominating presence, as seen in the viral clip. It is at this point he talks about the Opposition and calls the elections one-sided. 

After the viral video was widely shared on social media platforms recently, Yadav clarified on X on June 04 (archived here) that the video is five years old and has been taken out of context.

Screenshot of clarification post by Yogendra Yadav. (Source: X/@_YogendraYadav)

Clearly, an old video is being shared with a claim that Yadav has changed his prediction ahead of the announcement of the results. 

The verdict

A video featuring Yogendra Yadav's reaction to the 2019 exit poll results is being wrongly shared as a recent clip. The video was originally published by The Quint prior to the 2019 Lok Sabha election results and is five years old.