Digital Desk: Was there a teleprompter malfunction or a technological issue? After being forced to restart his virtual talk at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Davos agenda, Narendra Modi's detractors and supporters are arguing over this subject. PM's speech left the Twitterati divided. Some have even named him as Teleprompter PM.
The PM stopped before gazing to his left a few seconds into his WEF talk on Monday. He then put on his earphones and checked if he was audible with WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab. The PM resumed his remarks when Schwab replied affirmatively.
The interruption was just under two minutes long.
Also Read: For the first time in 75 years, Republic Day to start late than scheduled time
Modi's detractors in the Opposition said that he ran out of words because his teleprompter failed, pointing to previous criticism from politicians like Rahul Gandhi that Modi can't speak unless he's fed phrases through a teleprompter.
With the hashtag '#TeleprompterPM', the official Twitter handle of the Congress party attributed the glitch to a teleprompter issue. Referring to a Bollywood song, it said: "Teleprompter guy: Achha chalta hun, duaon mein yaad rakhna (Alright I'm leaving, keep me in your prayers)".
Rahul Gandhi himself tweeted that the teleprompter could not bear so many "lies."
Other opposition figures levelled the same charge.
While an official government statement is yet to be released, official sources claim that the true issue is the WEF's inadequate connectivity and event sequencing.
Suresh Nakhua, the official spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), blamed the failure on WEF technicians.
"Don't those getting excited at the tech glitch not realise that the problem was at WEF's end? They were not able to patch PM, so requested him to start again, which is evident in the way Klaus Schwab said that he will again give a short introduction and then open up the session," he wrote.
However, Opposition leaders also pounced on this defence, calling it part of a 'toolkit'. Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi said in a tweet: "Teleprompter + Toolkit = Technological Advancement."
The Bharatiya Janata Party frequently praises Modi's oratory, which has become another rallying point for many on Twitter.
Some believed that Modi couldn't go beyond what the teleprompter said even if we wanted to because the address was being translated live and had to keep to a script.
Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair of the fact-checking website Alt News tweeted that it was doubtful that the teleprompter had failed but that someone in the Prime Minister's Office was attempting to draw his attention. The World Economic Forum's footage of the address confirmed this, they wrote.
"The teleprompter is typically in the front. When the PM is distracted, he looks to the side, where probably the team managing the event from the PMO is sitting. It is likely that someone from the team was trying to get the PM's attention," Sinha wrote.
Modi's speech has divided the twitterati into two sections: one supporting him and his technical glitch and the other; mocking him and addressing him as the teleprompter PM.
Continue Reading
