Congress MP Shashi Tharoor seems to be making it a habit of attempting to troll Prime Minister Narendra Modi, only to get roasted on Twitter for goofing up while doing so.
On Monday night, Tharoor uploaded an image of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi in a limousine in a Western country. Tharoor wrote, “Nehru & India Gandhi in the US in 1954. Look at the hugely enthusiastic spontaneous turnout of the American public, without any special PR campaign, NRI crowd management or hyped-up media publicity.”
I am told this picture (forwarded to me) probably is from a visit to the USSR and not the US. Even if so, it still doesn't alter the message: the fact is that former PMs also enjoyed popularity abroad. When @narendramodi is honoured, @PMOIndia is honoured; respect is for India. https://t.co/9KQMcR0zTD
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) September 23, 2019
The tweet appeared to be a jibe at the 'Howdy, Modi' event attended by Modi and US President Donald Trump in Houston the previous night. Preparations for the 'Howdy, Modi' event, which was attended by over 50,000 Americans of Indian origin, had started months ago.
The only problem with Tharoor's tweet was that the image was not from the US! Several social media users pointed out the image was taken from a visit to the erstwhile Soviet Union by Nehru. Fact-checking site Boom Live did extensive research of the photograph and claimed it was taken during a visit by Nehru and Indira to Magnitogorsk, an industrial town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, in June 1955.
Moreover, Nehru had made a highly publicised state visit to the US in 1956, not 1954 as claimed in the tweet by Tharoor.
But more than the obvious factual errors, it was a typo in the tweet that went viral. Tharoor's reference to Indira as 'India' was latched upon; since late night on Monday, #IndiaGandhi and #USSR were in the top trends on Twitter in India. Some even brought up the infamous statement by former Congress president D.K. Barooah during the Emergency in 1976 that “India is Indira and Indira is India”.
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Tharoor responded to the trolling, noting the picture was “probably..from a visit to the USSR and not the US”. However, he continued to defend his argument “the fact is that former PMs also enjoyed popularity abroad. When @narendramodi is honoured, @PMOIndia is honoured; respect is for India”. Interestingly, there was no reference to the 'India Gandhi' typo.
Tharoor was heavily trolled after he started a 'language challenge' on Twitter in late August, following a suggestion by Modi to learn words in other Indian languages. Tharoor chose the 'pluralism', writing in English, Hindi and Malayalam. There was speculation the word 'pluralism' was chosen to highlight the Congress party's criticism of the Modi government's allegedly poor record on the issue. However, Tharoor got the equivalent word in Malayalam wrong, writing 'plural'.
