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Shashi Tharoor’s blunder on manifesto — a distorted India map
The map shown in the Congress president election manifesto evoked sharp reactions on social media, Tharoor's office made the correction. A functionary from his office said the distorted map was a "printing error".
Congress presidential election candidate Shashi Tharoor on Friday landed in a row as the manifesto shared by him for the poll shows a "distorted map of India" in which he has erroneously omitted parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The map shown in the manifesto evoked sharp reactions on social media, Tharoor's office made the correction. A functionary from his office said the distorted map was a "printing error".
Many users on Twitter, however, expressed displeasure over the error.
Amit Malviya, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) IT cell head, said while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is on 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', Tharoor is hell-bent on dismembering India.
“Shashi Tharoor, Congress’s presidential hopeful, puts a mutilated map of India in his manifesto. While Rahul Gandhi is supposedly on a Bharat Jodo Yatra, wannabe Congress President is hell-bent on dismembering India. Maybe he thinks this might help find favour with the Gandhis…,” Malviya tweeted.
Amid the backlash, Tharoor issued an apology and tweeted, “No one does such things on purpose. A small team of volunteers made a mistake. We rectified it immediately and I apologise unconditionally for the error.”
This is not the first time that Tharoor faced flak for showing a distorted map of India.
Back in 2019, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram tweeted a map of India where the northernmost territory of the country was missing. He later deleted the tweet and rectified his mistake.
The manifesto also has a typo on its last page. Many on social media have noted it to be "a massive goof-up" and "shameful". The senior Congress leader has over 8 million Twitter followers. On the last page, tomorrow has been misspelled as "tomorror".
On Friday, Tharoor filed his nomination papers at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) office in Delhi, after paying a visit to Raj Ghat to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, to contest the Congress presidential polls on October 17
“I have just submitted my nomination papers as a candidate for the presidential election of @incindia. It is a privilege to serve the only party in India with an open democratic process to choose its leader. Greatly appreciate Soniaji’s guidance and vision (sic),” he tweeted.
