Fake BBC survey predicting a BJP win in 2023 Karnataka elections goes viral on social media

Context

The state of Karnataka is set to go to polls for assembly elections on May 10, 2023 with Indian National Congress (INC), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) being the top contenders. With intense campaignining season in the lead up to polls, several news media outlets have published pre-election surveys and predictions. Amid this, some social media posts claimed to show that the BBC has conducted a survey predicting BJP will win the state, with around 130 to 142 seats of the 224 seats. This post, accompanied by a link to the BBC Hindi news website was shared widely on WhatsApp. It is also making rounds on Twitter, Facebook, and Koo. However, we found that these claims are incorrect. 

In Fact

We did not find any surveys conducted by the BBC on the 2023 Karnataka assembly elections. The URL provided with the recent posts, redirects to the home page of the BBC Hindi website. This URL does not link to any survey, publication, or specific article.

None of the official social media handles of the BBC India published election surveys pertaining to Karnataka state elections. We came across a recent Deccan Herald report that listed six pre-poll surveys in Karnataka. While two surveys were in favor of the Congress and two were in favor of a BJP win, none of the surveys have predicted a sure-shot absolute majority for any political party.

This purported survey was circulated ahead of the 2018 assembly elections in Karnataka as well. At the time, BBC News India had tweeted on May 7, 2018, and noted that those claims of a BBC pre-poll survey were fake. The post read, “A fake survey on Karnataka polls has been circulating on WhatsApp and claims to be from BBC News. We'd like to make absolutely clear that it's a #fake and does not come from the BBC. The BBC does not commission pre-election surveys in India. #fakenews.” This image has been shared again ahead of the 2023 elections with a similar false claim. 

The Verdict

The BBC has not published any pre-poll survey predicting a BJP win in the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections. None of the pre-poll surveys conducted to date have shown such a high majority for any party. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.