Tharoor Sees ‘Hindu-Muslim Unity’ in Photo of Kids Dressed as Nehru and Ayyankali, Panned on Twitter

Thiruvananthapuram: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor came in for much ridicule on social media on Thursday for his description of a photograph in which he poses with two children dressed as India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and social reformer Ayyankali.

While tweeting the photo, the Thiruvananthapuram MP seems to have missed the rose in the breast-pocket of the boy dressed as Nehru, a signature style statement of the late statesman. Mistaking the boy to be dressed as a member of the Muslim community, Tharoor tweeted: “Two Thiruvananthapuram kids dressed up as embodiments of Hindu-Muslim unity!”

Twitterati were quick to point out the faux pas to the former union minister, questioning how he interpreted the photo to be symbolic of Hindu-Muslim unity when there was no Muslim representation in it.

This is not the first time Tharoor committed a gaffe over Nehru on social media. Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Howdy, Modi’ event in Texas, Tharoor had tweeted a photograph of former PMs Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi waving to crowds from their motorcade.

“Look at the hugely enthusiastic spontaneous turnout of the American public, without any special PR campaign, NRI crowd management or hyped-up media publicity,” he had said.

The photograph, however, was not clicked in the US. It was from a 1955 visit by Nehru and Indira to the Soviet Union. Tharoor had even got the year wrong and spelt ‘Indira’ and ‘India’.

While Tharoor swung into damage control mode then, asking people to focus on his message that former PMs too enjoyed immense popularity abroad, he is yet to react to his latest goof-up.