DigitEye India Fact Checkers
Amid the Lok Sabha elections, several Telugu film stars, including Allu Arjun, Jr NTR and others, are seen casting their vote in several booths in Hyderabad on Monday, May 13, 2024. However, a video showing a voter reprimanding Telugu actor Chiranjeevi for jumping the queue at a polling booth has surfaced on social media.
.@KChiruTweets and his son RRR actor @AlwaysRamCharan questioned by common man in polling booth for breaking line
good to see common man standing up and voice out these privileged. pic.twitter.com/ZkBAGYLWMR
— . (@alanatiallari_) May 13, 2024
The claim reads:”@ChiruTweets and his son RRR actor @AlwaysRamCharan questioned by common man in polling booth for breaking line. good to see common man standing up and voice out these privileged. (sic)” It was shared on the day of polling in Telangana on May 13, 2024. Chiranjeevi’s official Twitter handle is @chirutweets and his son’s X handle is @@AlwaysRamCharan.
The video captured people in the queue saying, “Do you need special treatment.. Join the queue.” One person was seen arguing with the actor in the video.
FACT-CHECK
Digiteye India checked the video where the anchor of NDTV news channel was referring to Chiranjeevi as Union Minister, which was true but from October 2012 to May 2014, when he was Union Tourism Minister. Another tweet’s caption clearly says that the video never gets old, hinting that it was an old video.
Time and time.. This video never gets old 😂😂@KChiruTweets 😂😂😂pic.twitter.com/gEwafu5CVZ
— 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐲𝐚 👊 (@Only_balayya) May 13, 2024
Further search revealed that the incident occurred not in 2024 Lok Sabha elections but ten years ago when the 2014 elections were held. See the original incident reported by NDTV here in 2014.
A news report identified the man reprimanding Chiranjeevi as Raja Karthik Ganta, an NRI who came from London to “cast his vote.” Quoting Karthik, the report said that he had been waiting for about one-and-half hours since 8 a.m. to cast his vote when he suddenly saw Chiranjeevi accompanied by a horde of TV crew and his family members. “I felt it was not fair because I am also a resident and he was also a resident,” Karthik was quoted as saying.
However, Chiranjeevi later clarified to the media in the same news video that he had gone to the booth desk to check whether his name was on the voter list or not. “I am not such a person (who will violate the law). I am a person who respects democracy,” the actor told the media. Hence, the claim that Chiranjeevi had jumped the queue in 2024 elections is false.
Claim: Telugu actor Chiranjeevi was reprimanded for jumping queue at the polling booth.
Conclusion: The claim is false as the incident occurred in 2014 elections and not in 2024. Old video was reused.
Rating: Misrepresentation — 
