CLAIM
An image claiming to be that of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s brother has been doing the rounds on social media.
The image features a tea vendor whose features appear similar to the BJP leader’s. The caption shared along with the image reads: “उत्तर प्रदेश के मुख्यमंत्री आदरणीय योगी जी के भाई हैं जो चाय का दुकान चला रहे है, कांग्रेस के कोई भी बड़े नेता का भाई इस तरह का हो तो जरूर पोस्ट कीजिएगा (The brother of the respected Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogiji runs a tea shop... if the brother of any big leader of the Congress is like him, then you will definitely post it).”
The post was shared by Facebook user नीलम चतुर्वेदी विधायक (Vidhayak Neelam Chaturvedi), who claims to be an MLA, as per her username. It had an interaction count of close to a 1,000 and was shared a staggering 11,000 times at the time of writing this piece.
The same post was also shared by the Facebook group Modi Government and several other individual users.
THE TRUTH
While a reverse search of the image from the post did return several images, including another photograph of the same man from another angle, none of them could provide any context as to who the man was.
A detailed profile on Yogi Adityanath, published in The Times of India soon after he was announced as the UP CM, revealed that he is the fifth of seven children. It also pointed out that he has three brothers – two younger and one elder.
The youngest, the same report reveals, is Mahendra Singh Bisht, who is a journalist working with the The Times of India.
The one elder to him but younger to Adityanath, Shailendra Mohan, is a subedar in the Indian Army. He is posted near the China border as part of the Garhwal Scouts unit, India Today had reported.
The eldest brother, Manvendra Mohan, as this profile on Adityanath’s family by ABP News proves, looks nothing like the man seen in the viral image.
The same ABP News video also shows that the youngest brother, Mahendra, also does not look anything like the tea vendor.
Here is a side-by-side image of the three brothers and the tea vendor for comparison.
Hence, it is clear that the viral image is fake and the man is probably just a doppelganger of the UP CM, much like comparisons of the Hindutva leader to Hollywood actor Vin Diesel.
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