“Disaster”, says DD anchor as Amit Shah drops tricolour, and other Independence Day gaffes

Even as the nation was glued to the Independence Day address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Red Fort, some people were quick to grab the Doordarshan footage in which the Indian tricolour fell to the ground as Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah tugged at the cord at BJP headquarters in Delhi. That DD chose to show it live is another proof that the Modi Government has turned Prasar Bharti into ‘Prachar Bharti’. It also showed how publicity can be a two-edged sword.

A Twitter user tweeted a video and noted, “Wishing a healthy and long life for the DD news commentator who could not hold back his "tch tch tch... Disaster..." remark upon seeing this performance by BJP's national president".”

The Union ‘Finance’ Minister Arun Jaitley meanwhile stoked another controversy while wishing the nation on Independence Day. Several Twitter users were irked to note that the artwork on feedom fighters had left out Jawaharlal Nehru and had Vallabhbhai Patel’s portrait as larger than Mahatma Gandhi.

While several people on Twitter commented that Jaitley was pandering to his ‘Supreme Leader’ and the ‘ Big Bigot’, others tweeted, “ You may choose to exclude Nehru due to your pettiness but remember you can never include anybody from your ideology in this picture too. You know the reason why :)”

One of them, Sadhavi Khosla, in fact dug out an old cartoon to show how RSS, Jan Sangh and BJP had belittled Patel both before and after Independence before they tried to appropriate his legacy : “@arunjaitley BJP’s respect for Sardar Patel is new and fake. This Cartoon was published in 1945 in the magazine "Agrani" edited by Godse and it had Patel as one of the Ravana’s 10 heads! The magazine was funded by Savarkar.”

The Prime Minister’s address at the Red Fort also received some flak for his customary disregard for facts and for his penchant to propagate that nothing happened in the country before him and that everything done after he became PM has been spectacular.

Journalist Swati Chaturvedi tweeted, “Modi just got India's GDP wrong. He clearly has no domain knowledge and his script writers don't fact check”

Referring to the Prime Minister’s address that before 2014 the Indian elephant was asleep and that it had now begun its run, data analyst Praveen Chakravarty tweeted, “The elephant has marched a long distance, steered by some very capable mahouts and will continue its steady march”.

Academic and activist Yogendra Yadav took a potshot at the PM’s rhetorical flourish and wondered if he had missed out a few more words that could better describe his state of mind.

Another journalist pointed out that the PM was wrong in claiming credit in his address for withdrawing Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Tripura. “ He just said that we removed AFSPA from Tripura! FACT: AFSPA was removed from Tripura by the then CM Manik Sarkar in 2015. (A concurrent list subject, AFSPA can be implemented both by State and Centre, in Tripura's case it was being implemented by State govt),” she tweeted.

Others recalled that an Indian, Rakesh Sharma, has already been to space. “ First Indian astronaut, Sqdn Leader Rakesh Sharma - recalls Iqbal and poetry from outer space - decades ago.”

Some were quick to point out that manned mission to space was in the works for the past many years even as Prime Minister Modi sought to give the impression that it was his dream and aspiration that was being fulfilled.

“An Indian already went to space 34 years ago, an Indian probe reached Moon 10 years ago and Mars 5 years ago. Yeah... but Iook the world is calling me great because I am first one to be promising to send an Indian to space after 4 years.. bwahahaha.”