What is surprising is that the atmosphere in Delhi is very quiet, considering that the election campaign in India is underway at its most heated level. Since April 19, 968 million Indians have been able to cast their votes; in the Delhi metropolitan area, which has a population of about 35 million, voting will not take place until May 25. The candidates are currently traveling to states where elections will be held ahead of time. But most importantly, many election campaigns are characterized by agitation and hatred on social media.

Videos created or manipulated using artificial intelligence circulate on all platforms, from X to YouTube. With more than 800 million internet users, fighting the spread of misinformation is a difficult task.

Last week, police arrested nine people in the states of Assam, Gujarat, Telangana and Delhi. Six of them are members of the social media team of the opposition Congress party. They allegedly faked a clip showing Bollywood actors criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A video currently circulating shows Home Minister Amit Shah announcing that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will cut social benefits for minorities if they remain in power.

Modi, is portrayed as a kind of superhero

Modi, Shah and other BJP candidates stated during the campaign that the opposition wanted to redistribute the country's wealth to the Muslim minority. Modi spoke of “statements that we never thought of” regarding the doctored video and called it a conspiracy “to create tension in society.” However, the official clip shows Modi himself as a cartoon character, a kind of superhero who is the only one taking action against the exploitation of the country by Muslims. The cartoon provides no evidence for the exploitation thesis.

Home Minister Shah released his original speech in response to the forgery and claimed that the Congress party was behind the forgery. “Police have been directed to investigate the matter,” Shah said, according to Reuters news agency. The opposition, on the other hand, accused the BJP government of using its power to influence the election campaign in a big way. Congress Party accounts were frozen weeks before the election due to unresolved tax debts; This caused many problems for the party in its costly election campaigns. Arvind Kejriwal, the popular and opposition Chief Minister of Delhi, was jailed shortly before the election on corruption charges.

The most spectacular arrest also occurred in Delhi last Friday. The police cyber crime unit arrested Congress Party national social media coordinator Arun Reddy for circulating a fake video of Shah. In Delhi, the Shah's ministry directly controlled the police. Congressman Manickam Tagore said the arrests were an example of “authoritarian abuse of power by the regime.”

There are constant election campaigns in Uttar Pradesh

The BJP government has repeatedly introduced legislation in recent years to crack down on reports on social media platforms deemed false or inflammatory. The law received sharp criticism from operators and the opposition. The BJP itself runs a large social media team that produces and distributes content such as Modi cartoons.

Another fake video from last week shows Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, also of the BJP, criticizing Modi for not doing enough for the families of those killed in protests in 2019. With more than 220 million people, Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India. Voting was carried out there at each of the seven stages of the election, so that the election campaign continued. More than 500 people in the state monitor online content and, if necessary, ask social media companies to remove it.

Indian women wrestlers protest

Yogi Adityanath is considered a potential successor to Modi. Although fact-checkers said the video was created from various parts of the original clip, police called it an “AI-generated fake,” Reuters reported. It is difficult to determine in this election campaign what is true and what is fake or just conjecture.

The protest expressed by the Indian wrestlers was very clear and concrete. Last year they demonstrated for weeks at a camp near the new parliament in Delhi to demand the ouster of the association's chairman, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has been accused by a number of female wrestlers of sexual harassment and assault. Singh is also a BJP MP, a vote getter. The party has now nominated his son, Karan, as his successor; he is running in the Kaiserganj constituency in Uttar Pradesh, which his father has won six times.

Feudal-style transfers of power are not uncommon in South Asia, but in this case the athletes cannot be calm about the change in personnel. “Princess loses, Brij Bhushan wins,” wrote Sakshi Malik, bronze medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Malik left the sport last year in protest. His colleague Bajrang Punia wrote last Thursday, “It would be unfortunate for this country if the daughters of medal winners were dragged into the streets and the sons of the people who exploited them sexually were honored by giving them a ticket.”

Due to lower voter turnout so far, the BJP is worried it will not be able to achieve its target of 400 seats in the next parliament. This also heated up the election campaign.