Fake news peddler masquerading as fact-checker Mohammad Zubair, the co-founder of Islamist propaganda site Alt News, was caught spearheading yet another fake news to attack BJP and pimp for Samajwadi Party. The propagandist deliberately confused between district and assembly constituency to claim that BJP was doing the same error after slamming SP for the same.
Mohammed Zubair posted two candidate lists published by SP and BJP for UP assembly elections and alleged that both parties used old names for districts renamed by the Yogi Adityanath led BJP govt.
At 2:11 PM, BJP targets SP for writing Allahabad instead of Prayagraj.
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) January 28, 2022
At 2:30 PM, BJP tweets a list of candidates for UP. Ironically, Even they've used Allahabad instead of Prayagraj. 🤦🏽♂️🙆🏾♂️
Hypocrisy ki bhi Seema Hoti Hai @BJP4UP 🤡🤡 pic.twitter.com/CICAu5BT3U
Earlier in the day, it was reported how the Samajwadi Party in its third list for UP had used the names Allahabad and Faizabad, the old names for the two districts which have been renamed as Prayagraj and Ayodhya. The SP was slammed by netizens and some members of BJP for still using the Mughal-given names in the list issued yesterday when the two districts were renamed three years ago.
Today BJP announced a list for UP elections, and it included some constituencies from the Prayagraj district. Eager to defend the Samajwadi Party, Md Zubair used this BJP list to claim that while the party was slamming SP for using the old name Allahabad instead of the new name Prayagraj, it itself used the old name Allahabad. He posted a screenshot of the BJP where the word Allahabad could be seen.
But this is a blatant misleading allegation by Zubair, because the word Allahabad BJP used does not refer to the district, which was renamed to Prayagraj in 2018. There are differences in how SP and BJP prepared their lists, and Zubair mischievously used to difference to make a baseless allegation against BJP.
As we can see in SP list, they used both the district names and the assembly constituency names. The second column contains the district name, the third column has the assembly constituency number, and the fourth column in the SP list has the assembly constituency names. Here, SP used the old district names Allahabad for Phulpur constituency, and used Faizabad district for Goshainganj constituency. Therefore, SP was rightly slammed for using old names for the two districts.
On the other hand, the list released by BJP does not even mention the districts against the assembly seats, therefore, there is no question of using old district names as alleged by Zubair. The BJP list only has the assembly constituency number in the second column, and the assembly constituency name in the third column. There is no column for districts.
The two names that Zubair has highlighted as Allahabad West and Allahabad South. As clear from the list itself, they are assembly constituency names and not district names. Yogi Adityanath government had renamed the Allahabad district as Prayagraj, and Faizabad as Ayodhya. The assembly constituency names were not changed.
In fact, the state government does not have the authority to change assembly constituency names, as this comes under the authority of the Election Commission. Political parties are bound to use the official constituency names and numbers used by the EC.
The Prayagraj district has 12 assembly seats, and three of them are named after Allahabad. The press note issued by the EC announcing the upcoming assembly polls in five states mentions these constituencies as Allahabad West, Allahabad North and Allahabad South. While the district name has been changed from Allahabad to Prayagraj, the assembly constituencies have not been renamed, even if they contain the same word. The assembly constituency names can be changed after delimitation, but till that happens, the old names are the official names, and parties have to use them.
Therefore, SP used Allahabad for the district name, which is no longer an official district name. On the other hand, BJP has not used any district name, and it mentioned official assembly constituency names as per the Election Commission of India. But Mohammed Zubair twisted that fact to spread the misinformation that BJP also used Allahabad instead of Prayagraj.
