Fact Check: No, Election Commission Has Not Declared Recounting Of Votes On 25 Seats In Bihar

Bihar Assembly elections were held between October 28 and November 7 in three phases. The results of which were announced on November 8. BJP and JDU won the elections with 125 seats while the alliance of RJD and Congress lost. Since the announcement of results, there are claims of fraud by the opposition party. Many fake videos and images are being shared on social media in regard to this, some of which we have debunked here, here and here.

A Facebook page 'News Technical Channel' has posted on social media a video with the caption, "25 सीट पर EVM गड़बड़ी फिर से होगी रिकांउटिंग । बिहार विधानसभा चुनाव 2020." (Which translates in English as, "EVM fraud in 25 seats in Bihar Assembly elections 2020, recounting will be done".)

This video has been viewed for over 69,000 times and has over 1000 shares.

Another YouTube Channel, Bahujan Kalyan TV has also put a video with title, "बिहार चुनाव का 25 सीटों पर फिर से होगी रिकाउंटिंग #Nitish का CM बनना नामुमकिन #Tejaswi की हवा चली|".

Claim:

EVM frauds detected on 25 seats in Bihar and the recounting will be done.

Fact Check:

The Logical Indian first searched for the news on 'recounting of votes in Bihar Assembly Elections 2020 on 25 seats,' and was not able to find any news regarding the same.

Instead, we found a report published in Business Standard on November 13, 2020. According to the report, 11 candidates who had lost with a margin of fewer than 1,000 votes had sought for recounting as they were not satisfied with the results. They sought recounting of votes and accused the election authorities of taking sides of candidates of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Many of them have been planning to challenge the decision of ECI in court after the EC had rejected the application of recounting for six candidates. The six candidates who sought recounting included, Shakti Singh Yadav from Hilsa, Narendra Singh from Matihani, Sudhakar Singh from Ramgarh, Digambar Prasad Tiwary from Parbatta, and from two other constituencies - Kurhani and Ramgarh.

The Logical Indian listened to the video of News Technical channel and it said, RJD leader Shakti Singh Yadav who contested from Hilsa constituency of Bihar has filed a petition in the High Court about fraud during vote counting. Shakti Yadav claimed that he initially won by 549 votes but was finally declared to be trailing by 12 votes. He also alleged fraud in the ballot counting; he said he won by 17 votes in ballot counting but later 16 votes were dismissed without giving a reason for the same.

The Logical Indian spoke to Shakti Singh Yadav and he said that he has filed a complaint in High Court for recounting as the authority were not fair during counting. He said, "The rule is to first count the ballot votes but they started with the EVM counting and kept ballot for the last." He also said that the votes in the ballots were disqualified, while the authorities had already taken signatures from us and the ballots were opened in front of authorities. He said he complained to EC regarding same but no actions were taken thus, he took the matter to High Court with the hope of recounting will be allowed. When asked is there any information on recounting, he said, 'Right now recounting has been denied despite providing enough reasons."

Election Commission told The Logical Indian, "Recounting has not been considered as the claims made by the candidates is legally impossible and Logistically unthinkable,"

Thus, the claim of recounting on 25 seats are false and has not yet been declared by Election Commission.

We also listened and found that in both the video, there were no statements of election recounting, so the video seems to be shared with misleading titles and thumbnails.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

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