2014 video of voter reprimanding Indian actor Chiranjeevi for jumping queue shared as recent

What's the claim?

During the ongoing Indian general election, a video segment from a Telugu-language TV news broadcast has gone viral on social media. The 2-minute 20-second video shows an incident involving actor and former politician Chiranjeevi.

The video commentary discusses the increasing voter awareness and narrates an incident where Chiranjeevi, known primarily for his work in Telugu cinema, arrived at the polling station with his family and attempted to bypass the queue. This led to a voter questioning him.

The news segment reports that Chiranjeevi tried to explain himself but, failing to convince the voter, he returned and joined his family in the queue. The voiceover emphasizes that the voter questioned Chiranjeevi's behavior because he arrived as a voter with his family, not as a Union Minister.

At the 30-second mark in the viral video, the voter says to Chiranjeevi, "We have been in the queue for one and a half hours... Do you need special treatment? No, no, no, your son is here; you should be in the queue, right?" The news voiceover mentions that Chiranjeevi eventually returned to join the line with his family, and the voter's actions were later applauded by other voters, as indicated by the applause seen in the footage. The footage also includes a brief clip of Chiranjeevi explaining his actions.

Screenshot of the viral X posts. Source: (X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

This incident was shared on X (formerly Twitter) with the caption, "Chiranjeevi Jumped Queue at a Polling booth Jubilee Hills and was taken Aback.” Users also added hashtags related to the ongoing elections, like #APElections2024, indicating that it is a recent incident.

An archived version of the post can be found here, alongside a similar post archived here, which has garnered approximately 82,400 views.

Andhra Pradesh went to the polls on May 13 for both the ongoing Indian general election and the Assembly election. However, the incident seen in the video happened in 2014 and is being shared without that context.

What we found

We noted the logo of V6 News, an Indian Telugu language channel, displayed prominently in the left corner throughout the footage. 

Taking a cue from this, we found an extended version of the viral video published on the official channel of V6 News (archived here) in Telugu on May 1, 2014, with the title, "Chiranjeevi Jumps Queue at a Polling Booth In Jubilee Hills And was taken Aback."

(Source: YouTube)

The extended version of the video includes a full clarification from Chiranjeevi, starting at the 2-minute 14-second mark. He states, "I'm not the kind of person who would violate rules... I went to the table just to cross-check whether my name was registered or not..." He further explains that he approached the officers to confirm his registration at the station, asserting his respect for democracy and denying any attempt to breach protocol.

An NDTV report from April 30, 2014, titled “Applause as NRI Stops Chiranjeevi from Jumping Voters' Queue,” features the same footage of a voter reprimanding Chiranjeevi. The segment begins at the 18-second mark, with the report stating, "Actor-politician Chiranjeevi faced censure from voters today when he allegedly tried to bypass the queue at a polling station in Andhra Pradesh."

The report further notes that the Congress politician, who was then a Union minister, arrived with his son, daughter, and wife to vote at a polling station in the Khairatabad assembly seat in Hyderabad. He reportedly bypassed a long queue of voters to proceed directly to the front. However, the issue arose because Chiranjeevi came to the polling station as a voter, not as a Union Minister.

Chiranjeevi served as the Union Minister of State for Tourism, with independent charge, from October 2012 to May 2014, and was a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) until April 2018. Although there are no reports of him leaving the Congress, the actor has since withdrawn from active politics.

A report by The Hindu identified the individual who reprimanded Chiranjeevi as Raja Karthik Ganta, a Cambridge-based IT professional who traveled from London to cast his vote.

Chiranjeevi and the 2024 Lok Sabha election

On May 13, Chiranjeevi and his family were seen at a polling booth in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, casting their votes. A video by news channel Mirror Now, available on YouTube (archived here), captures this moment. In the video, Chiranjeevi is seen wearing a black outfit, a stark contrast to the white attire he is seen wearing in the viral clips.

Source: YouTube

The verdict

In the midst of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, an old video has resurfaced, leading some to believe it depicts a recent incident where Chiranjeevi was criticized by a voter for attempting to bypass the queue at a polling booth. However, this video is from 2014 and has no connection to the current Indian general election. Therefore, we have marked this claim as misleading.