Muslim Voters Photo Falsely Connected to 2026 BMC Elections in ‘Vote Jihad’ Misinformation

Misleading Photo of Muslim Voters Circulating with False Claims About 2026 BMC Elections

A viral social media image purporting to show Muslim voters queuing at a polling station during the recent Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections is spreading false information online, fact-checkers have confirmed.

The photograph, which depicts a large group of Muslim men and women standing in line to vote, has been circulating with captions falsely claiming it shows Muslim voters turning out en masse for candidates Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray during the January 15, 2026, BMC elections. The posts frequently include divisive rhetoric about “vote jihad,” seemingly attempting to stoke communal tensions.

Verification efforts have revealed the image actually dates back to the 2024 Indian general elections and was taken in Varanasi during the final phase of voting on June 1, 2024. The photograph was captured by Associated Press photographers and later featured in an Al Jazeera article about the national elections published on June 5, 2024.

The original AP caption clearly states: “Muslims stand in queues to cast their votes in the seventh and final phase of national elections, in Varanasi, India, Saturday, June 1, 2024. Indians began voting Saturday in the last round of a six-week-long national election that is a referendum on Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power.”

The same image can also be found on the stock photography platform Alamy, where it is properly cataloged as being from the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, not from any municipal contest.

The misleading posts appear designed to create a false narrative around voting patterns in the recently concluded BMC elections, where the BJP-led Mahayuti alliance secured a decisive victory. The coalition won 25 of 29 municipal corporations across Maharashtra, including the prestigious BMC, where they gained 118 seats in the 227-member body, comfortably crossing the majority threshold of 114.

This victory marked a significant political shift in Mumbai’s municipal governance, ending the Thackeray family’s nearly three-decade-long influence over the city’s civic body. The BMC, India’s richest municipal corporation with an annual budget exceeding Rs 45,000 crore, has long been considered a power center in Maharashtra politics.

Political analysts note that misleading social media campaigns often intensify after significant electoral shifts. “When traditional power structures change hands, we frequently see an uptick in divisive content online,” explained Dr. Sanjay Mehta, a political communication researcher at Mumbai University. “These fabricated narratives attempt to create simplified explanations for complex electoral outcomes by scapegoating specific communities.”

Digital rights activists have expressed concern about the increasing frequency of such misinformation. “Using old images from entirely different contexts to push communal narratives has become a common tactic,” said Priya Sharma, who leads a media literacy initiative in Mumbai. “It’s particularly troubling when these false narratives target religious minorities and attempt to portray their democratic participation in a negative light.”

This incident represents a broader pattern of election-related misinformation that has plagued Indian social media in recent years. Fact-checkers recommend that users verify images through reverse image searches before sharing politically charged content, especially when it contains communal overtones.

The circulation of such misleading content highlights the challenges facing voters, election authorities, and technology platforms in combating the spread of false information during and after electoral processes, and underscores the importance of media literacy in India’s digital ecosystem.