Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
Aditya Thackeray removes ‘Minister’ ‘Maharashtra government from his bio
Several verified handles made the claim including The Organiser, Pune Mirror, Jan ki Baat. Journalists Sanjay Yadav, Ali Shaikh and Sudhir Suryawanshi were others who tweeted the same claim.
Fact check/Verification
To verify if the claim is true, Newschecker looked up the archive versions of the twitter page of Aditya Thackeray. We found several archival versions of the twitter page, latest of which was done today.
On checking the archive versions of the twitter page from June 13, April 28, April 5, March 11, February 17 and January 16, we did not find the words ‘Minister’ or ‘Maharashtra government’ in his twitter bio. Newschecker also verified the data using Spoonbill that confirmed that Aditya Thackeray had not changed his twitter bio since 2017.
We further looked up the Instagram handle of Aditya Thackeray which still mentions ‘Minister of Tourism, Environment and Protocol, Government of Maharashtra’. It would be unlikely that the designation is removed from one social media handle and retained in another one.
Hence we conclude that the viral claim that Aditya Thackeray removed ‘Minister’ and ‘Maharashtra government’ from his twitter bio is false.
Result: False
Sources
Web Archive pages by WayBack machine
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Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
