Ahead of the Maharashtra assembly elections, Lighthouse Journalism came across a misinformation that being shared the social media users could easily believe to be true. The graphic claimed to be of Lokmat media organization, with Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut’s statement on it being widely shared on social media platforms. During the investigation we found that the graphic was fake and that Lokmat had not carried any such statement.
Claim:
X user Shivani Gokhale shared the viral graphic on her X profile.
The graphic featured Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut’s statement, “लोकं उद्धव ठाकरेंना मुस्लिम ह्रदयसम्राट म्हणत असतील तर त्यात वावगं काय? हिंदू हरदयसम्राटचा मुलगा पण एका दुसऱ्या धर्माचा ह्रदयसम्राट असू शकतो.”
Translation: If people call Uddhav Thackeray emperor of Muslim hearts, what is wrong with that? A son of an emperor of Hindu hearts can also be an emperor of hearts of other religions.
Other users too are sharing the same graphic.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by checking the graphics shared on the social media handles of Lokmat. We did not find the viral statement.
However the templates on social media were very similar.
We also found a post which clarified that the viral graphic was fake.
The post clarified that Lokmat had not shared any such graphic.
We also connected with Lokmat Digital’s Amey Gogate, who informed us that several such misleading posts are being shared attributed to Lokmat.
They did one such article on the viral graphic stating a fake quote by BJP leader Chandrashekhar Bawankule.
We also checked using Google keywords if Sanjay Raut had given any such statement to the media. We did not find any news reports about the same.
Conclusion: Viral Lokmat graphic with Shiv Sena (UBT) Sanjay Raut’s statement is fake. He did not give a statement about Uddhav Thackeray being emperor of the hearts of Muslims. Viral claim is false.
