Gujarat Minister, an MBA, misspells elephant; calls error ‘intentional’

Gujarat Minister Shankar Chaudhary misspelt the word ‘elephant’ (he spelled it as elephent) while testing students during a school enrolment drive launched by the government, but later claimed the error was “intentional”.

Gujarat Minister Shankar Chaudhary misspelt the word ‘elephant’ (he spelled it as elephent) while testing students during a school enrolment drive launched by the government, but later claimed the error was “intentional”.

The Minister of state for urban housing, health and transport, in the picture, is seen seen writing “elephent” instead of “elephant” on the blackboard. (Screengrab)

On Thursday, Chaudhary visited a government-run primary school in Deesa town of Banaskantha district, around 150km from Ahmedabad, as part of the ‘Shala Praveshotsav’ (school enrolment drive) of the government, a programme carried out every year.

The episode came to light when a picture showing him writing a wrong spelling of elephant while teaching English as part of the drive went viral on social media.

The Minister of state for urban housing, health and transport, in the picture, is seen seen writing “elephent” instead of “elephant” on the blackboard.

After it started trending on social media, Chaudhary, who claims to hold an MBA degree, came out with a clarification, saying he deliberately misspelt the word to test the ability of schoolchildren to detect spelling mistakes.

“After writing ‘elephent’ instead of elephant, I gave example of ‘Deesa’. I wrote two spellings of the town -- Deesa and Disa -- on the blackboard and told them to choose the correct one.

“It was my attempt to make them understand language and spellings. Since media only showed the photo with wrong spelling, it appeared otherwise,” said the statement.

Recently, a petition was filed in the Gujarat high court alleging Chaudhary’s MBA degree was “fake”. However, the petition was disposed off by the Court.