AAP slips up, site unfurls Italian flag in run-up to Independence Day

An alleged goof-up by Aam Aadmi Party posting 'an Italian national flag' on its website instead of the Indian tri-colour put the party in an embarrassing state, evoking reactions on social media.

An alleged goof-up by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) posting "an Italian national flag" on its website instead of the Indian tri-colour put the party in an embarrassing state, evoking reactions on social media.

The party posted a vertical band of a flag which closely resembled the Italian flag and within minutes it became the center of criticism on Twitter. The party hurriedly took it off and clarified later on Saturday that the error was merely a software folly. “The picture was compressed while it was colour corrected in Photoshop.

To clarify the doubts however we have posted the original picture for people to see,” said Ankit Lal, a member of AAP who is responsible for handling the party’s website.

The clarification however was posted only on Lal’s personal twitter handle and not on the party’s official handle or website. “We did not see the need for making clarifications on the official page to satisfy the ignorance of selective people,” added Lal.

Though the picture attracted anger and accusations initially but now this “honest mistake” has become the butt of jokes for social media enthusiasts. Within minutes of the mistake being pointed out in social media websites jokes and memes started doing the rounds.

“AAP celebrates the Indian Independence Day with an Italian flag. Is this another vote winning strategy?” read one post. While another one read, “(AAP) tried to be creative with the Indian flag and created the Italian flag.”

The resemblance to nothing else but the Italian flag added to the humour quotient in many posts. Though the party stuck to its stand of it being a software error the picture was immediately removed from the website.