For some, elections apparently come with a money-back guarantee. A two-minute video clip of a man going door-to-door, asking people to return the cash he had given them, has gone viral on social media.

The man in the video is Uppu Prabhakar, 55, the husband of Hymavathi Prabhakar, who contested and lost as a ward nominee in the gram panchayat elections at Jajireddygudem village in Telangana’s Suryapet district on January 25.

The video has attracted contrasting comments — from “Worse than beggars!” to “Good initiative, people will stop taking money from candidates.” Mr. Prabhakar, a liquor vendor and farmer, has been incommunicado since the video came out.

Villagers said Mr. Prabhakar told them that the money now belonged to him since they did not vote for him. Ms. Prabhakar had lost, securing only 24 of the 269 votes in the ward.

But the video is only half the story. Mr. Prabhakar was recently deemed a rebel and suspended by the Congress. Shortly thereafter, on January 17, his wife became a ward nominee as an independent candidate, and he campaigned for her in his own style. “He would walk in with a quarter bottle of liquor kept in a plastic jug and ask for votes. He distributed jugs, as the jug was his wife’s election symbol,” a Jajireddygudem resident said.

Village elders said the ‘cash per voter (CPV) tradition’ was widely prevalent, as was the practice of giving every voter a quarter bottle of liquor every day until polling day. The CPV ranged from ₹800 to ₹1,500. Mr. Prabhakar, villagers said, allegedly gave every voter ₹800, along with liquor and the plastic jug.

After his wife had lost, Mr. Prabhakar, the villagers said, targeted about 110 voters. He visited their homes with mantra biyyam, raw rice mixed with turmeric, and asked them to swear on it that they had voted for his wife. If they didn’t, he demanded his cash back. “We were afraid that the mantra biyyam could go against us. So we told him the truth and returned the cash,” said a resident.