Amid the political stir in Maharashtra caused by the dissidence of a section of Shiv Sena leaders led by MLA Eknath Shinde, multiple media organisations and BJP leaders claimed that MLA Aaditya Thackeray removed the word ‘Minister’ from his Twitter bio.
RSS mouthpiece ‘eOrganiser Weekly’ shared a screenshot of Aaditya Thackeray’s Twitter profile to support the claim. (Archive link)
‘Jan Ki Baat’ also shared a screenshot of Aaditya Thackeray’s profile, claiming that he has removed the word ‘Minister’ from his bio. (Archive link)
Economic Times tweeted the alleged news on June 22. (Archive link)
Similarly, BJP Haryana IT cell head Arun Yadav, political strategist and commentator Amitabh Tiwari, The Pune Mirror’s journalist Ali Sheikh, The New Indian Express’s journalist Sudhir Suryavanshi, Zee News’s journalist Sanjay Yadav, News Agency ANI’s editor Payal Mehta, Deputy Editor and Anchor of News18 UP Astha Kaushik and many media organisations like The Times of India, News9, Pune Mirror, Mid-Day and Vibes of India, First India News, Navbharat Times, Punjab Kesari, Zee 24 Taas reported the same.
Fact-check
We searched the Twitter profile of Shiv Sena MLA Aaditya Thackeray, a cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government, on the Internet Wayback Machine and found that his current Twitter bio has not changed. Looking at several old archives of his Twitter profile, it is clear that the word ‘Minister’ wasn’t present in his Twitter bio. For example, below is a screenshot of an archive of Aaditya Thackeray’s Twitter profile dated June 13, 2022. The current political crisis erupted on June 20. There is no difference between his bio from June 13 and his present bio.
In fact, this was his bio even after his appointment as the cabinet minister for tourism and environment in the Maharashtra government in December 2020. The screenshot below is an archived link to his Twitter bio from March 2020. It is exactly the same as his present bio.
Several BJP leaders, journalists, and media organisations falsely claimed that Aaditya Thackeray removed the word ‘Minister’ from his Twitter bio amid the political crisis in Maharashtra. His bio has remained unchanged. The word ‘Minister’ wasn’t present in the bio.
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