Fact Check: Uddhav Thackeray did not bow down to Rahul Gandhi, he paid respects to Arvind Kejriwal’s parents

The MVA (Maha Vikas Aghadi) constituents, including the Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar faction), and Shiv Sena (UBT), have announced that they will contest the upcoming Maharashtra assembly elections together. Discussions about seat-sharing are still in the early stages. On August 16, during a meeting of the MVA allies, Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray urged the alliance to declare its Chief Ministerial candidate in advance, rather than waiting for the results of the Assembly elections, which are expected to be held in October-November. In the previous Lok Sabha elections, the MVA outperformed the Mahayuti alliance by winning 30 out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, with the BJP losing 14 of the 23 constituencies it had secured in 2019.

In this backdrop, a photograph that went viral on social media shows Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi holding a flower bouquet, with former Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray beside him in a bowing position."

Social media user shared the image with a Hindi text “एक असली मराठा क्या "इस" उद्धव ठाकरे को वोट देगा??? “

When translated to English, it reads: “Will a true Maratha vote for "this" Uddhav Thackeray???

Fact Check : We found the claim is false, the image was digitally altered.

During a reverse image search, we found an Instagram post shared by AAP's official account on August 8, 2024. In the post, we found a similar image of Uddhav Thackeray, but instead of Rahul Gandhi, an elderly couple was standing beside him.

While going through the post in the caption, we found " महाराष्ट्र के पूर्व मुख्यमंत्री उद्धव ठाकरे, संजय राउत और आदित्य ठाकरे ने मुख्यमंत्री अरविंद केजरीवाल की पत्नी सुनीता केजरीवाल और उनके माता-पिता से मुलाकात की।इस दौरान आप के राज्यसभा सांसद संजय सिंह और राघव चड्डा भी मौजूद थे।"

When translated, it says: “Former CM of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray, along with Sanjay Raut and Aditya Thackeray, met Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wife Sunita Kejriwal and his parents. During this time, AAP Rajya Sabha MPs Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha were also present".

When we searched the keyword 'Uddhav Thackeray meets Arvind Kejriwal's parents', we found that on August 8, 2024, NDTV shared the same image on their official X account.

In the post NDTV mentioned " Shiv Sena (UBT) leaders Uddhav Thackeray, Aditya Thackeray and Sanjay Raut meet Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's parents, daughter and wife Sunita Kejriwal. AAP MPs Raghav Chadha and Sanjay Singh also present".

We also found an article published by Midday with the title" IN PHOTOS: Uddhav Thackery meets Arvind Kejriwal's wife, parents in Delhi".

In the article, Midday published a series of photographs. Among them, we found an image where Uddhav Thackeray is seen greeting the parents of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

This confirms that Uddhav Thackeray did not bow down in front of Rahul Gandhi; he was actually greeting Arvind Kejriwal's parents.

Furthermore, we searched for the keyword “Uddhav Thackeray met Rahul Gandhi”.

On August 7, 2024, ANI posted: " Former Maharashtra CM and Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray, along with his son Aaditya Thackeray, met Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, in Delhi"

We compared the images of Thackeray greeting Kejriwal's parents and the one with Rahul Gandhi, and we found that the two images were combined to make a false statement. Here is the comparison.

Hence, we found the claim is false, the viral image has been digitally altered. In the original image, Thackeray is greeting Arvind Kejriwal's parents.