No, This Is Not A Photo Of Eknath Shinde With Bal Thackeray

Rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde was sworn in as chief minister of Maharashtra and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis as deputy chief minister on June 30, after an eight day long political crisis in the state. Former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray resigned after the Supreme Court ordered for a floor test. The political turmoil of Maha Vikash Aghadi (MVA), a coalition of Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Indian National Congress, began after Shinde led other rebel Shiv Sena MLAs and camped in Surat and Guwahati. The image has been shared in this context.

The image has been shared on Facebook with a caption, "Balasaheb Thackeray is giving blessings and applying tilak on Eknath Shinde in an old photo."

(Original Text in Hindi: "एक पुरानी फोटो में बालासाहेब ठाकरे एकनाथ शिंदे का तिलक देकर आशीर्वाद देते हुए।")

Facebook Posts can be seen here and here.

The image was also shared on Twitter with the same claim.

The Tweet is archived here.

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Fact Check

BOOM ran a reverse image search which led us to an article published on May 15, 2022 by Lokmat.

The caption of the image states that Bal Thackeray applied tilak on his party functionary Anand Dighe.

The same image was also used on a BBC Marathi article published on April 15, 2022 which identified the man in the image as Thane based influential Shiv Sena leader late Anand Dighe.

The image was also tweeted by the official Twitter handle of Shiv Sena on August 26, 2021.

The Frontline Magazine profiled Anand Dighe on September 15, 2001. An online version of the article reads, "In 1989 he (Anand Dighe) came into the limelight following the murder of Sena corporator Shridhar Khopkar, who allegedly cross-voted against the Shiv Sena in the Thane mayoral election. Dighe was directly linked to the murder. He was detained by the police but released later. All that the incident did was to put the fear of Dighe in partymen."

Reports claim Eknath Shinde was mentored by Dighe and became influential in the Thane-Palghar belt after Dighe's demise in 2001.

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