Authors
Social media posts claiming Maneka Gandhi removed the BJP from her Twitter bio are viral. This comes in the wake of similar claims that her son Varun Gandhi dropped BJP from his profile. A fact check by Newschecker showed that both the claims are false.
The two members of the Nehru-Gandhi family who are in Bharatiya Janata Party are MPs of Sultanpur and Pilibhit respectively.
In September, Varun Gandhi had tweeted in support of the farmer’s agitation which made a section of social media users claim that he was likely to leave BJP and join another party soon. In this context, social media posts claiming the MP changed his Twitter bio to remove the word BJP from his account were widely shared.
Sequentially, posts claiming Maneka Gandhi also removed the party name from her Twitter bio also went viral on social media.
Fact Check/Verification
To investigate the claim, we checked the Twitter handles of both Varun Gandhi and Menaka Gandhi and found no reference to BJP in their Twitter bio.
Research by Newschecker found that Maneka Gandhi’s Twitter page has been archived 58 times between 2016 and 2021 through an archive tool called Wayback Machine.
Maneka Gandhi’s Twitter account was created in 2014 and though many changes were made to the description, we found that the party name was never included in the Twitter bio.
With the help of a tool called SPOONBILL, Newschecker also found that Maneka Gandhi has changed her Twitter bio 7 times in total.
Thus claims suggesting Maneka Gandhi edited out BJP from her bio are false.
Similarly, Varun Gandhi’s Twitter account, created in 2010, has been archived 63 times so far.
Varun’s Twitter bio has also been changed multiple times like Maneka Gandhi’s but included BJP in the description until he was appointed general secretary of the party, after which the party name was dropped from his account.
With the help of SPOONBILL, we find that Varun Gandhi changed his Twitter bio 12 times in total since the account was created.
Conclusion:
Thus the claim, ‘following Varun Gandhi, Maneka Gandhi too removed the word BJP from her Twitter bio’ is misleading.
Result:
Misleading
Our Sources:
M Gandhi’s Twitter page
Varun Gandhi’s Twitter page
SNOOPBILL
Wayback Machine
If you would like us to fact check a claim, give feedback or lodge a complaint, WhatsApp us at 9999499044 or email us at checkthis@newschecker.in. You can also visit the Contact Us page and fill the form.
