`Camera angle confusion': Uddhav Thackeray did not insult Chhatrapati Shivaji
A picture of Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray standing with folded hands in front of the portrait of late PM Indira Gandhi is viral on social media.
By Newsmeter Network
HYDERABAD: A picture of Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray standing with folded hands in front of the portrait of late PM Indira Gandhi is viral on social media. A wall painting of Chhatrapati Shivaji can be seen in the background.
Netizens are claiming that Thackeray has insulted Chhatrapati Shivaji by mounting a wooden plank that holds Gandhi's portrait on the painting.
Twitter user Smita Deshmukh shared the picture and wrote, "A wooden plank on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to accommodate his new Matoshri. I've seen everything now."
The tweet has received over 14.6k likes and the screenshot of this tweet has been shared by multiple users on Facebook.
FACT CHECK:
NewsMeter performed a reverse image search and found that the picture was tweeted by the Maharashtra CM's office on October 31. The picture was taken when Thackeray paid homage to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on the occasion of her death anniversary.
Taking this as a hint, NewsMeter searched for videos of the event and found a video report by DD Sahyadri News uploaded on October 31. At timestamp 00:28 seconds, we can see Thackeray garlanding Gandhi's portrait.
Here, it is clearly visible that the wooden plank used for holding the portrait was not leaning on the wall against Shivaji's portrait. A gap between the wall and the plank is noticed. This confusion arose due to the angle from which the photos were taken.
The picture was taken in a manner from where the gap was not visible. The portrait was not placed right in front of Shivaji's portrait but at the side. Indira Gandhi's photograph was kept on a wooden plank away from the wall and wasn't covering Shivaji's portrait. The angle of the picture led to confusion.
NewsMeter checked for other instances where Thackeray garlanded portraits of other respected personalities in the same room and noticed that in all instances, none of the pictures covered the Shivaji painting.
This is a classic case of camera angle confusion. It is not the first time a wrong camera angle led to confusion. Earlier, an image of Prince William raising three fingers was misinterpreted as a rude gesture from a different angle.
Clearly, due to the angle from which the picture was taken, it looked like Gandhi's portrait leaned against Chhatrapati Shivaji's painting.
