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| - Fact Check: Indira over Shivaji? Why social media flak for Uddhav is misplaced
A photograph of Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray has gone viral showing him standing with folded hands in front of the portrait of late PM Indira Gandhi. Netizens are claiming that Thackeray has insulted Marathi icon Shivaji by putting a wooden plank on his portrait to accommodate Gandhi's picture. India Today Anti Fake News War Room has found that the angle of the picture has confused netizens.
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India Today Fact Check
The picture was clicked on October 31 at Uddhav’s residence-cum-office. Indira Gandhi’s photograph was kept on a wooden stand away from the wall and it wasn’t covering Shivaji’s portrait either. The angle of the picture has confused netizens.
A photograph of Shiv Sena chief and Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray has gone viral showing him standing with folded hands in front of the portrait of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. A wall painting of Chhatrapati Shivaji can be seen in the background of the wooden plank upon which Gandhi’s portrait is mounted.
Netizens have shared the picture with the claim that Thackeray has insulted Marathi icon Shivaji by putting a wooden plank on his portrait to accommodate Gandhi’s picture.
Twitter user “Smita Deshmukh” posted the picture and wrote, “A wooden plank on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to accommodate his new Matoshri. I’ve seen everything now.”
The screenshot of Deshmukh’s tweet has been shared by multiple users on Facebook.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the picture was clicked on October 31 at Thackeray’s residence-cum-office. Gandhi’s photograph was kept on a wooden stand away from the wall and it wasn’t covering Shivaji’s portrait either. The angle of the picture has confused netizens.
Critical angle
The viral picture was originally tweeted by the Maharashtra CM’s office on October 31 with a caption in Marathi which translates to, “Chief minister Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray paid homage to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on the occasion of her death anniversary. He also appealed to build a strong nation on the occasion
of National Resolution Day.”
Several users replied to Deshmukh on Twitter pointing out that it was the angle of the photograph that has created confusion. User Walter Menezes posted images of Prince William as an example where a shot of him raising three fingers was misconstrued as a rude gesture from a different angle.
Taking this as a clue, we tried to find other videos or images of the same event taken from different angles by other media outlets.
We found that the same event was covered by DD Sahyadri News, which uploaded a video story on its YouTube channel on October 31. At 28 seconds into the video, we can see Thackeray garlanding Gandhi’s portrait.
After closely examining the screengrabs of DD Sahyadri News, we found that the wooden tripod stand was not leaning on the wall against Shivaji’s portrait. There was a clear gap between the wall and the tripod.
In the DD Sahyadri News video, we found only one shot of Gandhi’s portrait from the front. Observing it carefully, we saw that only a corner portion of the Shivaji portrait is visible behind Gandhi’s picture. It means the stand was not placed right in front of Shivaji’s portrait but at the side.
Thackeray had also paid tributes to Iron Man Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, whose portrait was kept on another wooden stand alongside Gandhi’s.
We spoke to Sahil Joshi, the chief of Maharashtra’s Aaj Tak bureau, who was present at the event.
According to him, a large portrait of Chhatrapati Shivaji adorns the wall of Thackeray’s meeting room. “The wooden stands were kept at the side of the portrait. There was roughly 2-3 feet distance between the stands and the wall. Since the photographer had taken the picture from the right, it looks like the stands are leaning on Shivaji’s portrait, but it was not so,” Joshi said.
We found earlier pictures of Thackeray garlanding portraits of other respected personalities at the same room and these photographs were taken from the same angle. In none of these pictures, the wooden stands have covered the Shivaji portrait.
Hence, it is only the angle from which the viral image was taken that has created the confusion. The wooden stand upon which Indira Gandhi’s picture was mounted had neither leaned on the wall nor did it cover the Shivaji portrait from the front.
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