india

Updated: May 13, 2019 15:56 IST

A controversy has erupted over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments in a television interview in which he said that he sent an email in 1987-88. The Prime Minister was fact-checked by many on Twitter, who pointed out that email facilities were not available until 1995.

In a video clip that is circulating wildly on social media, PM Modi says that he used a digital camera in 1997-88 to click a colour photo of LK Advani, adding that he used email at the time to send the photo to the national capital.

“First time I used digital camera in 1987 or 1988… then a handful of people had email. At one of the public meetings of (LK) Advani ji in Gujarat’s Viramgam, I had a digital camera. I took a photo of Advani Ji and transmitted it to Delhi. He was surprised and said how did my colour photo appear today,” PM Modi said in the interview to News Nation.

Soon after, social media was buzzing with tweets fact-checking PM Modi. The first digital camera, users pointed out, was sold by Nikon in 1987 and commercial emails were introduced in 1990-95 and the email facilities were not available until 1995.

I will not mock Modi ji on the digital camera or email bit. If in 88/89 a poor chaiwalla with NO Money could afford this "luxury ", then imagine the transformation shree Rajiv Gandhi ji got. All you #Chowkidar 's please vote Congress#MondayMotivaton — Tehseen Poonawalla (@tehseenp) May 13, 2019

More Modi gems. Nothing adds up. Poverty? Yet by own admission digital camera which few people had. pic.twitter.com/dd3BVkFUxT — Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) May 13, 2019

The question is even if he did have an email id in 1988 when the rest of the world didn’t, who was he sending emails to? ET? https://t.co/6akUH0nSa6 — Divya Spandana/Ramya (@divyaspandana) May 12, 2019

Modi invented Digital camera, EMail, like gas from the gutter & clouds which could not be penetrated by radars. Ask any Bhakt. https://t.co/sPrmrSaFmZ — shahid siddiqui (@shahid_siddiqui) May 13, 2019

Earlier on Sunday, a political row broke out over PM Modi’s comments in the same interview over the timing of the Balakot air strikes. In this interview, PM Modi had outlined how the government had decided to go ahead with the strike at Jaish-e-Mohammed’s biggest terror training camp despite a cloud cover.

PM Modi’s comment nevertheless triggered a series of reactions on social media from the Opposition parties. It didn’t help that the BJP’s Twitter handle, which tweeted the PM’s remark soon after the interview, deleted it later.

On February 27, the Indian Air Force had carried out the airstrikes at the Jaish camp deep inside Pakistan. The government said the strikes were designed to destroy the training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed for the Pulwama suicide bombing 13 days earlier. Forty CRPF soldiers were killed in the February 14 bombing, the deadliest terror attack on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in three decades.