The Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), poll strategist group working closely with the Trinamool Congress for the 2021 assembly elections, has rubbished viral screenshots showing an alleged leaked internal survey predicting a win for Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Suvendu Adhikari from the Nandigram constituency.
The image is viral ahead of the West Bengal elections, which are being held from March 27 to April 29, 2021, in 8 phases. Since Prashant Kishore’s political consultancy IPAC is campaigning for Mamata Banerjee’s party, All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), many social media users are posting the image to claim that even the political consultancy firm of Mamata Banerjee knows that she is going to lose from Nandigram.
The Twitter users are sharing the image with the caption, “PK’s internal survey leaked. Pishi is losing Nandigram..#PishiHarcheBanglaJitche”.
Suresh Nakhua, Spokesperson of BJP Mumbai, also shared the post.
Nandigram has been termed as the ‘battle royale’ of the West Bengal assembly elections this year, with TMC leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee contesting the seat against BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari, an aide turned rival. Both Banerjee and Adhikari were instrumental in overthrowing the Left government of Bengal in 2011 by swinging votes from Nandigram.
The screenshot appears to be an image of a computer screen featuring a letter addressed to poll strategist and founder of IPAC Prashant Kishor. It contains a summary report of the phase 2 survey of the Bengal polls that will happen on April 1. The viral screenshot highlights the Nandigram constituency and BJP as the projected winners in the same. I-PAC tweeted the screenshot, stating, “Facing imminent defeat, @BJP4Bengal has now gone down to the level of using FAKE surveys in the name of I-PAC to keep the morale of their workers up!!”
On surveying and closely observing, it was found that the image which is being shared, Pratik Jain’s spelling, the co-founder of IPAC, is wrong. It is written Prateek Jain while his name is Pratik Jain. Also, Trinamool Congress is mostly referred to as ‘TMC’ or ‘AITC’, but in the viral survey, it is mentioned as AITMC. IPAC, on March 31, 2021, took to Twitter to refute the viral post. The IPAC tweeted, “Facing imminent defeat, @BJP4Bengal has now gone down to the level of using FAKE surveys in the name of I-PAC to keep the morale of their workers up!! P.S: In I-PAC, no one uses desktops, so at-least be smart in your effort to create fake survey/reports!”
TMC also tweeted refuting the viral claim. TMC tweeted, ” BJP IS LOSING BIG IN NANDIGRAM! Anticipating a huge loss, @BJP4Bengal has resorted to doing what it does best- SPREAD FAKE NEWS! This document is fake & has ZERO credibility, just like BJP’s leaders & promises! Circulating such fake reports won’t work!#BohiragotoChaiNa.”
