A photo (here, here and here) of Maithili Thakur, BJP candidate from Bihar’s Alinagar constituency, is going viral on social media. The photo shows her wearing a BJP scarf and folding her hands, standing alongside former BJP leader Swami Chinmayanand and Manohar Lal Dhakad, who gained attention after the controversial Mandsaur highway video. It is being claimed that both leaders travelled to Bihar to campaign for Maithili Thakur. Let’s find out the truth behind this photo.
Claim: The viral photo shows Swami Chinmayanand and Manohar Lal Dhakad campaigning in Bihar for Maithili Thakur of BJP.
Fact: The viral photo is edited. The heads of Swami Chinmayanand and Manohar Lal Dhakad were superimposed onto the original photo of Maithili Thakur joining the BJP, where Dilip Jaiswal and Amit Prakash Bablu were actually present. The original photo was posted on Dainik Bhaskar’s Instagram on 14 October 2025. Hence the claim is FALSE.
On closer inspection of the viral photo, it is clear that the heads of Swami Chinmayanand and Manohar Lal Dhakad have been superimposed onto other bodies, indicating that the image has been edited.
A reverse image search on Google led us to the original photo, posted on Dainik Bhaskar’s Instagram on 14 October 2025. The original photo makes it clear that Dilip Jaiswal and Amit Prakash Bablu’s faces were replaced with Swami Chinmayanand and Manohar Lal Dhakad in the manipulated version. The Instagram post relates to folk singer Maithili Thakur joining the BJP, with BJP state president Dilip Jaiswal formally giving her party membership at the BJP Media Center in Hotel Chanakya, Patna.
A side-by-side comparison of the viral photo and the original photo clearly shows that the faces were swapped while everything else remains the same, providing clear evidence that the viral photo is edited.
Additionally, a Google keyword search to check if Swami Chinmayanand and Manohar Lal Dhakad attended any election campaign with Maithili Thakur yielded no results.
To sum up, this photo of Manohar Lal Dhakad and Swami Chinmayanand at Maithili Thakur’s Bihar election campaign is edited.
