Fact-Check: Did Aaditya Thackeray Call Uddhav Thackeray A Corrupt Man?

In the original speech, Aaditya Thackeray called the current Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde a corrupt man.

Fact-Check: No, Aaditya Thackeray didn't call his father a corrupt man.

(Photo: The Quint)

The screenshot from what looks like a public address of Maharashtra MLA Aaditya Thackeray has gone viral with a claim that he called his father and former Chief Minister of the state Uddhav Thackeray, a corrupt man.

The claim: The graphic has an image of Aaditya with Marathi text that when translated to English says, "The ex-CM is a corrupt man".

The text at the bottom said, "Aaditya Thackeray Targets Former Chief Minister" and "Scammers will be jailed".

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(The post was shared by other people on Facebook.)

The truth: The screenshot was taken from Aaditya's address on 12 March, where he targetted the current Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde and said that the letters in the acronym CM stood for "corrupt man".

How did we find that out:

• We conducted a keyword search for Aaditya's speeches and referring to the Maharashtra CM as a corrupt man along with "Zee-24 Taas", the logo seen in the viral image.

Zee-24 Taas logo seen in the viral image.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

• In the search results, we found his speech from 12 March in an article on Zee News' website that said that Aditya targeted CM Shinde.

• English newspaper The Times of India also reported on the speech in Mumbai and said that CM now stands for “Corrupt Man”, and added that Shinde had a a government of contractors.

• The original video clip from his speech was found on Zee News' YouTube handle and at around the 0:50 timestamp, we can see the original statement.

• A comparison of the original screenshot with the viral image can be see here.

A side-by-side comparison of the viral image with a screenshot from the original video.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Conclusion: An edited screenshot from a speech by Aaditya Thackeray has gone viral to claim that he called his father a corrupt man.

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