Lighthouse Journalism came across an image of the Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray bowing down in front of the Congress MP Rahul Gandhi. Several social media users have shared this image claiming it to be true. During the investigation we found the viral image to be edited. Shiv Sena UBT has also threatened legal actions against the social media users sharing this image.
Claim:
X user Amit Singh Rathore shared the edited image on his profile.
Check the archive version of the post here.
Other users too are sharing the image on their profiles.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by running a reverse image search on the viral image.
We found a picture of their recent meet in an article shared by Ahmedabad Mirror on August 8.
This suggested that the article is from their recent meet in Delhi.
We also found the images on the X handle of ANI.
Uddhav Thackeray’s clothes in the original image of the Delhi meet were different, suggesting that the image is edited. We then ran a reverse image search on the part of the picture where he was seen bowing in front of the Congress MP.
This led us to a post on X handle of AAP.
The third image in the combination of three images was the one where Uddhav Thackeray was seen bowing. The post is from 8th August when Shiv Sena UBT chief met Arvind Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal and his parents in New Delhi.
We also found a tweet by Shiv Sena quoting the edited image.
An article in The Free Press Journal also mentioned that Shiv Sena UBT has threatened legal action on X handles for sharing his edited image with Congress MP Rahul Gandhi.
In the last step of investigation we reached out to the Shiv Sena UBT MP Priyanka Chaturvedi. She said, “The desperate IT cell of BJP even after having got no confidence from voters for sharing fake narratives, fake images continue to do that and seem to have learnt their lesson. Their frustration with the Maharashtra election outcome in the Lok Sabha and their defeat assured in the upcoming state elections is making them fall to new lows . But as the saying goes, the lower you go, the higher we will go.”
Conclusion: Viral image where Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray was seen bowing down before Congress MP Rahul Gandhi is edited. Viral claim is false.
