New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the World Economic Forum on Monday evening.
“This bouquet includes the temperament of us Indians,” Modi said in Hindi, modulating his voice and raising a finger for emphasis as he uttered the word “temperament”.
In a snippet from his Davos speech that has now gone viral, PM Modi stops his speech midway due to what looks like a technical glitch.
“It contains our talent,” he continued, again emphasising the word “talent” with a raised finger. As Modi did so, he stole a glance to his left.
“Which…,” he said. He looked again to his left, this time turning his head.
He kept looking, his expression changing, then he turned to face the microphone again and raised both his hands as if throwing them up, then looked down and plugged in an earphone into his right ear and looked up again.
Once the glitch (possibly the teleprompter malfunctioning) was rectified, Modi started his speech all over again.
The clip of the Prime Minister’s pause was being widely shared on social media
Many Congress leaders, journalists questioned the Prime Minister, some trolling him for stopping his midway due to teleprompter malfunction.
“Even the teleprompter could not take so many lies.”, Rahul Gandhi tweeted referring to the Davos speech.
https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1483152570889691140?s=20
Meanwhile, other Twitter users pointed out that it is unlikely that PM had a teleprompter gaffe. The teleprompter is usually in the front so it can be a connectivity issue as PM asks WEF executive chairman Klaus Schwab whether he is audible.
"Here is WEF version of PM Modi's speech, someone in the background says, "Sir aap unse ek baar poochen, ki sab jud gaye kya?". Doesn't look like it's teleprompter issue. Later in his 20 min speech, He doesn't look sideways. TP could be at the front.", Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair said in a tweet.
"It is unlikely that PM had a teleprompter gaffe. If you look at the WEF version of the recording of his speech, someone in the background says, "Sir aap unse ek baar pooche ki sab jud gaye kya". This portion is not clear in the video live-streamed on PM's YouTube channel.", Pratik Sinha, Alt News founder tweeted in a thread.
