8 years after being crushed by PM Modi, opposition finally finds a chink in his armour. Or did they?

The opposition thinks that it can corner PM Modi now. Opposition parties are trending #TeleprompterPM on Twitter, and several Twitter handles, supporting the opposition, are trying to show PM Modi in a bad light. 

But what is this controversy all about? And should it bother PM Modi at all?

The opposition thinks it found a chink in his armour

The thing with Prime Minister Modi is that he is a brilliant orator. Be it in formal institutions like the Parliament and intergovernmental bodies, or be it informal settings like election rallies and political speeches, PM Modi speaks in an articulate way and it is very difficult to counter him or find any errors in his speeches. 

Also read: Pakistan unveils its first national security policy. Blames PM Modi for its misery

However, the opposition thought that it had found an opportunity to corner him. On Monday, PM Modi addressed the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda. There was a technical glitch in between due to which there was a disruption in his speech. 

The video started trending on social media and many critics of the Prime Minister claimed that his teleprompter had stopped functioning and that is why he had stopped speaking midway.  

#TeleprompterPM started trending 

“Even the teleprompter could not take so many lies,” tweeted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. 

Other Twitter handles started posting an old video of Rahul Gandhi, in which the Congress leader can be heard claiming, “Narendra Modi cannot speak on his own. He reads from a teleprompter that is operated by a controller.”

Soon, #TeleprompterPM started trending on Twitter, with many Modi critics taking to social media in a bid to ridicule or mock PM Modi. 

https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1483152570889691140?s=20

https://twitter.com/cjwerleman/status/1483330526173745153?s=20

But did the opposition actually find a fault? 

Forget all the chatter on social media for a while and try to understand what happened. 

PM Modi addressed the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda on Monday. The video of his address has been uploaded on the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Prime Minister Modi’s YouTube pages. You can access these links and check them out. 

The video of his address makes it clear that in between his speech, there was some technical glitch, and PM Modi’s speech couldn’t be carried on the live stream for some time. 

One minute into his speech, PM Modi stopped abruptly and looked to his left. At this moment, there is a voice in the background in the Hindi language, asking PM Modi to check if everyone on the call can see him. Thereafter, the Prime Minister asked WEF chairman Klaus Schwab if he and his interpreter’s voices were audible.

Schwab replied in the affirmative. He also said that he will give a short introduction of PM Modi and India, following which the Prime Minister will give his speech. After the introduction by the WEF chairman, PM Modi gave a 19-minute speech, and it was free of any errors.  

So, guess what, there was no absurd moment. It was a technical glitch, and that is it. 

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The opposition thought that it had caught PM Modi in an awkward moment. But as it turns out, there was nothing more than a mere technical glitch.