As the situation for the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra gets tougher by the minute, several news organisations and journalists are now claiming that Aaditya Thackeray has removed the reference to his Cabinet position from his Twitter bio.
The move is big touted as a big 'development' amid the turmoil that the government faces due to the rebellion of Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde, who has claimed that he has the support of around 46 MLAs.
However, a look at the internet archives of the profile of Thackeray – who is the minister of environment and tourism – shows that he never mentioned his Cabinet rank in his bio.
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CLAIM
Among those who amplified this claim were news organisations like Pune Mirror, Financial Express, Zee News, Mid-Day, The Economic Times, Scroll, CNBC-TV18, and News24.
RSS' magazine Organiser and news portal Jan Ki Baat also tweeted about this.
The archives of several other journalists and users stating the same on social media can be viewed here and here.
WHAT DO THE INTERNET ARCHIVES SHOW?
We looked up the archives of Aditya Thackeray's profile on Wayback Machine, a repository of internet archives.
Thackeray's profile was archived 362 times between 2014 and 13 June 2022.
We went through his archives from March 2020 (first available archive after he was sworn in) till June 2022 (at the time of the rebellion), to see if there was any reference to his position as a minister on his microblogging profile.
But, we found none!
An archive of his profile from March 2020 shows his bio as, "Voicing the Youth, Poems and Photography: Passion. President, Yuva Sena. President- Mumbai District Football Association Instagram: adityathackeray."
An archive of Aaditya Thackeray's profile from March 2022.
(Source: Wayback Machine/Altered by The Quint)
And that's exactly what his bio reads now.
Aditya Thackeray's profile as on 22 June.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
Fun Fact: This is what was mentioned in his Twitter bio even before he was sworn in. (Archive here)
Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi, too, called out the misconception on Twitter.
Interestingly, it was just yesterday that several news organisations had erroneously mentioned that Eknath Shinde removed 'reference' to the party from his bio. You can read our fact-check here.
WHAT ARE THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN MAHARASHTRA?
Following the developments, Shiv Sena national spokesperson Sanjay Raut took to Twitter to hint at the dissolution of the state Assembly.
Shinde has claimed the support of 46 MLAs, several of whom moved with him from Surat to a hotel in Guwahati in the wee hours.
Assam BJP MLA Sushanta Borgohain had come to receive the rebel Sena MLAs at the Guwahati airport earlier.
A Cabinet meeting is scheduled to take place.
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