Set to become Congress party president soon, Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday got his basic maths wrong while trying to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of price rise. In one of the questions to Modi, as part of his daily ‘question a day’ to BJP, Gandhi asked on Twitter whether the BJP government was only for the rich. He tweeted a table showing the percentage rise in prices of items like gas cylinder, daal, tomato, onion, tomato, milk and diesel. (See table below). However, the percentages were inflated by 100 points. For instance, he claimed that there has been a 285% rise in the price of tomato from Rs 35/kg to Rs 100 kg. The actual percentage increase would be (if the data presented in the table is considered) 185%. Similarly, the price of gas cylinder increased by 79% but Rahul’s table claimed it to be 179%.

Screenshot of the tweet deleted by Rahul Gandhi

However, soon after the blunder was reported, the official twitter handle of Rahul Gandhi (@OfficeOfRG) removed the table without giving any clarification on the error.

Later, the Twitter handle posted another table. This time just showing the increase in prices, and not in percentage points. The new table claims prices of items like gas cylinder, pulses, tomato, onion, milk and diesel have increased by Rs 328, 35, 65, 40, 12 and 7 respectively.

Rahul Gandhi’s corrected tweet:

22 सालों का हिसाब#गुजरात_मांगे_जवाब प्रधानमंत्रीजी-7वाँ सवाल: जुमलों की बेवफाई मार गई

नोटबंदी की लुटाई मार गई

GST सारी कमाई मार गई

बाकी कुछ बचा तो –

महंगाई मार गई बढ़ते दामों से जीना दुश्वार

बस अमीरों की होगी भाजपा सरकार? pic.twitter.com/1S8Yt0nI7B — Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) December 5, 2017

Rahul Gandhi has been aggressively attacking the BJP governments at the Centre in Gujarat. In a question to the PM on Monday, Rahul had asked as to why the “fix” and “contract” salaries were just Rs 5500 and Rs 10,000 only when the 7th Pay Commission provides for Rs 18,000 per month as basic pay.

On Monday, Rahul filed his nomination for the post of Congress president. He is likely to be elected unopposed.