Two tweets that embarrassed BJP in three days

In December 2014, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Sakshi Maharaj's controversial remarks put the Narendra Modi government in the dock. A visibly furious prime minister, while talking to BJP MPs, told them to think before they spoke. The PM's advice was spot on. Speaking before you think is a habit that can get you into trouble. And if you are in public life then you should be thinking twice before speaking because not doing so may hurt you more.

But it has had no impact on either the BJP MPs or its ministers. Even the prime minister himself and his finance minister Arun Jaitley failed to follow this sane advice. Last week, both of them embarrassed themselves with their speech and tweets.

Let's start with the prime minister.

In his third Independence Day speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Modi spoke about how the government's thrust on rural electrification was impacting lives. He said, "Out of 18,000 villages, more than 10,000 villages have been electrified. The village of Nagla Fatela is only three hours from Delhi, but it took more than 70 years for it to get electricity. I have been told they are with us, watching this celebration of Independence Day."

The PMO tweeted a photo of a group of people allegedly sitting in Nagla Fatela village and watching his speech on a TV set.

It said: People of Nagla Phatela watching the Independence Day celebrations for the first time. More power to them. :)

- PMO India (@PMOIndia) August 15, 2016.

Power minister, Piyush Goyal, seconded Prime Minister Modi by posting photos on Twitter claiming them to be of the people in the newly-electrified village.

When the media went to Nagla Fatela to check Modi's claim, they found that 450 of the 600 homes in the village did not have power, and that the remaining got their electricity from illegal "katia" connections. These connections are from a transformer meant to run 22 tube wells. So technically, no home is legally electrified.

The gram pradhan of Nagla Fatela refuted the prime minister's claim and said, "No programme was organised in our village. The picture with children watching the Independence Day programme does not belong to our village." After getting caught on the wrong foot, the PMO deleted the "offending" tweet.

Embarrassed Goyal tried to pass the blame on to the state government. But it is ironical that the Central government, which has around 4 lakh employees could not send even one of them to the village of Nagla Fatela, which, as the prime minister said, is "only three hours from Delhi".

UP government added 'Nagla Fatella' to a list of unelectrified villages and got funds from Centre for the work pic.twitter.com/4w51DQZtMc

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) August 18, 2016

While this controversy was still going on, on August 18 at 8.30am, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley courted controversy with a tweet when he paid tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his "death anniversary".

Bose is believed by many to have lived even though reports claim that the leader had died in an air crash in Taiwan in 1945. Netaji's family members and admirers raised serious objection to Jaitley's tweet for terming August 18 as Netaji's "death anniversary". It is a date that has never been officially recognised by the government of India or by Netaji's home state West bengal.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was among the first to raise objection on the issue and fired a tweet condemning Jaitley's statement on the social media.

Today is Raksha Bandhan I don't want to hurt anybody. But shocked with @arunjaitley Ji hurtful tweet this morning on Netaji.We're all hurt

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) August 18, 2016

Following outrage on social media and political circles, Jaitley deleted his tweet.

The question is, why have two tweets embarrassed the top two leaders of the Modi government in less than three days?

The answer of course is simple. In both cases, the leaders went public with a fact or thought without applying their minds or without due diligence. If Modi would have followed his own mantra of December 2014, or Jaitley would have followed his leader's advice, these goof-ups could have been avoided.

To err is human. But one should have been bold enough to accept his mistake. But sadly, neither of the leaders has accepted that he had erred. They may think that by deleting their tweets, the record will cease to exist, but what they forget is that in this day and age people's memory are no longer limited by what is officially available. This article is proof itself that the blunders will live on and people will be reminded of them every time they need to share a smile over foolish acts of leaders.