In bid to ridicule Rahul Gandhi, PM Modi 'mocks' dyslexic students, faces heavy backlash

While taking an impromptu dig at Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended up mocking dyslexic students.

During the video conference for ” on Saturday, an engineering student from Dehradun introduced her project to the Prime Minister that could help dyslexic children who face reading and writing difficulties.

She said, “We have an idea to help dyslexic children, whose pace of learning and writing is very slow. But they have a high intelligence and creativity level as you have seen in the movie Taare Zameen Par…”

At this point, PM Modi interrupted and asked, “Will this program work for a 40-50-year-old child too?”

After being prompted by her peers, the student replied: “Yes sir, it will work.”

Taking indirect potshots at Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi, PM Modi said, “If it really will, then it will make the mothers of such children very happy.”

The comment drew laughter from the students present there.

The comments have not, however, gone down well with many Twitter users registering their outrage on Sunday calling the PM’s remarks as “insensitive”.

The Prime Minister also faced heavy backlash from many opposition leaders.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah slammed PM Modi for his “insensitivity”.

“Your insensitivity can’t be washed away by dipping in any river,” he tweeted.

Just came across a video of our @narendramodi taking political potshots using the name of dyslexic people.

Shame on you Modi!!

You just can’t go below this. Your insensitivity can’t be washed away by dipping in any river. They may be slow in learning but not heartless like you.

— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) March 4, 2019

CPM chief Sitaram Yechury termed the dialogue as “shameful and distressing”.

Shameful and distressing. Some of us have dyslexic or disabled relatives, friends, children and parents. Sattar saal mein pehli baar, a person with this crassness occupies the chair of the PM. Enough, Mr Modi. Yeh hain sanskar aapke? https://t.co/8wBvtjPy7q

— Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) March 3, 2019

Several other prominent people too criticised the Prime Minister for his “thoughtless” remarks.

The Prime Minister of India keeping it classy as ever. Cracking a joke about dyslexia to target a political opponent. pic.twitter.com/qLoQMwKxVH

— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) March 3, 2019

Leonardo Da Vinci,Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso,Lee Kuan Yew, Alexander Graham Bell,Tom Cruise and many great men & women were all believed to be dyslexic & look what they made of their lives. Mocking differently abled people marks a new low in our political discourse.#Dyslexia https://t.co/H2Y747zGid

— Sumanth Raman (@sumanthraman) March 3, 2019

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