Shashi Tharoor took to Twitter to share the image of former prime ministers of India, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, waving to a huge crowd with the claim that the picture was taken during their visit to the US in 1954. However, it was in reality an image of Nehru’s official visit to the city of Magnitogorsk in the Soviet Union in 1955.
Not only did he share it with a misleading caption but he also misspelled the name of the late Indira Gandhi as “India”.
Tharoor’s mistake led to Moscow and the USSR trending on Twitter in India with 34,000 and 15,000 respective mentions at the time of publication.
It was soon discovered to be an image of Nehru’s Soviet-era trip in 1955 when his daughter Indira Gandhi accompanied him.
Tharoor subsequently shared another post on Twitter saying: “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…”
However, his clarification didn’t stop netizens from sharing hilarious memes.
Others including journalists entered the fray and took a dig at Tharoor.
Tharoor is widely respected not just as a former UN envoy but as a scholar with an enviable command of diction.
He had actually tweeted to downplay Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s massive reception in the US by the Indian diaspora. He said there were others like former prime ministers Nehru and Indira who also enjoyed similar mass appeal abroad even without any “public relation campaign or media publicity.”
As he represents India’s opposition party Congress, Tharoor’s tweet was perceived by many as a bid to undermine the recently held “Howdy Modi” event. It was held in the US city of Houston on 22 September which witnessed US President Donald Trump and Modi being greeted by about 50,000 members of the Indian diaspora.