Has anyone seen Modi Ji clapping or banging on plates at 5 pm, asks TM Krishna

While the Prime Minister had everyone, including opposition leaders like Sharad Pawar and chief ministers of opposition-ruled states like Odisha, come out at 5 pm on Sunday to clap, blow conch shells, beat drums and ring bells to thank the caregivers, curiously the Prime Minister, who thrives on publicity and has in the past posted videos of his fitness regime and doing exercises, appears to have shied away from posting a video of him clapping.

While his personal handle @NarendraModi on Twitter re-tweeted his mother ringing a bell and re-tweeted several other videos from different parts of the country and thanked people for responding to his call, he refrained from posting a video of himself clapping. Neither @PMOIndia nor the official @PIBIndia handle of the Government’s Press Information Bureau tweeted any video featuring the PM either. Nor did the official handle of BJP, normally hyper active in sharing PM’s videos, remained unusually coy.

T.M. Krishna, the musician, activist and author, on Monday drew attention to the mystery and tweeted, “ Has anyone seen a video of Modi clapping or banging on plates at 5 pm ?”

Krishna’s tweet , re-tweeted over 200 times till 1 pm on Monday, triggered some funny and some not-so-funny response. Here is a selection of comments from his TL:

· No. Have you ever seen a pied piper following himself?

· https://twitter.com/Mohan_Rngnathan/status/1241860953592827905?s=20

· The conductor of an orchestra, even if only of cacophony, doesn't play, does he/she?

· He must have been clapping indoors!! Convinced and happy that he is the ruling millions of fools!!

· Have you ever seen a madari dancing along with his monkey

· Dnt you have better work than to know what modiji did at 5 pm, he is shouldering responsibility of Indian lives while you cannot help anyone but waste your time in mocking at these times,

The Prime Minister did, however, tweet and re-tweet several videos. In one of them on Sunday, he said, “Very good ! Step back and appreciate the finer aspects of life”, prompting wags to quip that he could be doing exactly that.

He also appreciated a Network18 video on the coronavirus epidemic and tweeted, “Excellent way to use the power of the media to spread a message of hope and positivity…that India will defeat COVID-19…”

However, several union ministers and the President of India posted videos of them clapping at 5 pm. Here are some of them: