Uddhav Thackeray Denied To Speak at Rally by Congress? No, Claim is False

Fact-Check: Shiv Sena spokesperson denied the viral claim to The Quint.

(Altered by The Quint) 

A short clip showing Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray seemingly being interrupted while trying to speak on a stage is being shared on social media platforms.

What is the claim?: Those sharing claimed that it showed Congress members not letting Thackeray speak.

What’s happening in the clip?: In the 29-second clip, the people around Thackeray are constantly nudging him and a sense of confusion is on the stage.

• Thackeray says ki "wait, wait, let me speak." He also says "I will only speak for five minutes."

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(X/Screenshot) 

This post recorded 385.3K views at the time of writing this story.

(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

Is this true?: No, the claim is misleading.

• In the longer version of the video, the Shiv Sena leader was asked to speak for a longer time by the others present on the stage. However, Thackeray persisted on speaking for only five minutes but later agreed to speak for longer.

• The video is from a recent rally hosted by the Nationalist Congress Party - Sharadchandra Pawar (NCP-SCP) in Wardha, Maharashtra.

How did we find out?: At first, we looked for the longer version of the event.

• We came across a video on ABP Majha's YouTube channel from 22 April.

• Upon translating and going through the video, we found that the viral video starts roughly around 1:02 minutes.

• Thackeray, speaking in Marathi, could be heard saying that he could only speak for five minutes as he had to leave for someplace else.

• However, the others on the stage were persistent in hearing Thackeray speak for longer as he is a senior leader.

The Quint spoke to Shiv Sena (UBT) spokesperson Harshal Pradhan who clarified the incident at the rally. Calling the claim "bogus," he said, "Amar Kale of the NCP-SCP was giving a speech. Uddhav Thackeray was running late for his flight."

• Thackeray had requested Kale if he could give the speech before his. Kale complied and let Uddhav Thackeray have the stage.

This can also be seen in the livestream of the rally on Mumbai Tak's YouTube channel.

About the speech: Uddhav Thackeray spoke about the pride he has in his identity and being against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

• He mentions he was not there to preach religion like PM Modi does with the "Hindutva narrative".

Conclusion: A video from NCP's recent Wardha rally is being shared with a false claim that Congress members stopped Thackeray to speak at the rally.

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