Aaditya Thackeray's Hoarding Used to Set False Narrative on Muslim Appeasement

It's a 2019 image and similar hoardings had been put up in many languages such as Gujarati, Telugu, among others.

An image of a hoarding showing Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray with a text written in Urdu language is being shared on social media to insinuate that the Shiv Sena is trying to appease the Muslim community.

However, the image that dates back to 2019 is being shared with a misleading narrative as hoardings showing Aaditya Thackeray had been put up ahead of the Maharashtra elections in different languages such as Marathi, Gujarati, Telugu and not only in Urdu.

CLAIM

The National Media Panelist of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Charu Pragya, had shared the image showing text in Urdu that translates to: "Salaam Worli", with the caption: "From Saffron to Green, From Marathi to Urdu, From Shiv Sena to...?"

Several social media users amplified the claim on Facebook and the archived posts can be viewed here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We performed a Google reverse image search on the viral image that led us to an article published by India Today in October 2019.

The article mentioned that Aaditya Thackeray had then filed his nomination papers in Worli for Maharashtra Assembly election.

The report carrying an image similar to the viral one, further stated that Thackeray's posters had been put up in different languages such as Urdu, Gujarati, Hindi, and various south Indian languages.

In the image on the left, the text in Urdu reads: "Salaam Worli" while the image on the right carried text in Telugu, translating to: "Namaste Worli."

The images have been credited to Aaj Tak correspondent Saurabh Vaktania who told The Quint's WebQoof team that the image dates back to 2019.

"This is an old picture and I had only captured these images. This was a part of Aaditya Thackeray's election campaign from Worli constituency and the hoardings were put up in Marathi, south Indian languages, Gujarati, among others."

Saurabh Vaktania, correspondent, Aaj Tak

We also came across a News18 article published on 3 October 2019 that carried images of similar hoardings put up in different languages such as Gujarati, Marathi, among others. (Note: Swipe right to see the images.)

Meanwhile, The Quint's correspondent Ritvick AB, too, confirmed that Aaditya Thackeray's hoardings were put up in different languages ahead of the Maharashtra elections in 2019.

Evidently, social media users shared an image with a misleading narrative that the Shiv Sena is trying to appease the Muslim community.

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