By Anmol Alphonso
A viral graphic, purportedly showing a 'Poll of Polls' by news outlet NDTV that predicts a landslide victory for the Congress party in the Telangana assembly elections against the incumbent Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), is fake.
NDTV also put out a statement calling the graphic fake, and adding that it has not conducted the 'Poll of Polls' for Telangana.
Telangana is set to vote on November 30, 2023, with the counting and results to be declared on December 3, 2023.
The Congress Party is being seen as the main contender to the ruling BRS with the BJP eyeing to make inroads in the southern state. South First–Peoples Pulse Pre-poll Survey published on November 26 had indicated that Congress is ahead in the Telangana Assembly election, while the ABP CVoter Opinion Poll published on November 4 had indicated that the ruling BRS was ahead.
The fake graphic was tweeted by Congress's Maharashtra Congress Sevadal X (formerly Twitter) handle with the caption, "BREAKING NOW - NDTV Poll of Polls gives Majority to Congress in TELANGANA. Most Opinion Polls are predicting that in Telangana, BRS is staring at their biggest defeat due to huge anti-incumbency against KCR govt. Today, the NDTV Poll of Polls Tracker #Congress75inTelangana"
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The same numbers from the fake graphic were posted by Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate claiming that they were put out by NDTV.
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The fake graphic is also being shared by Congress handles on Facebook.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral NDTV "poll of polls" graphic is fake and the news outlet has not put out any such graphic as being claimed.
NDTV tweeted out confirming that the viral graphic is fake and it has not conducted "poll of polls" for Telangana. "#FakeNewsAlert | NDTV has not carried any poll of polls for #Telangana2023. Please don’t spread fake news," the tweet read.
The fake graphic quotes 7 polls, however, we could only find two polls - South First Pre-Poll Survey and Lok Poll Survey, whose numbers quoted are the same as published by these outlets. The ABP CVoter poll numbers quoted in the graphic are fake as compared to their November 4 survey which predicted that the BRS is ahead.
These can be seen below:
South First Pre-Poll Survey (November 26)
Lok Pol Survey (November 21)
ABP CVoter Survey (November 4)
The two agencies quoted in the graphic - 'BRS Internal Survey' and 'Police and Intelligence Bureau Report' are not any official polling agencies that are cited by news organisations.
State police forces do not publish any polling numbers and neither do political parties release their 'internal survey' especially if it shows the party lagging its opponents.
