Shah, along with four colleagues, was stuck in the lift for 20 minutes between the ground and the first floor before the Central Reserve Police Force began a rescue operation that ended up taking another half an hour. The Times of India reported that all of those inside were "totally panic stricken," and that it took Shah another half an hour to get back to normal after the incident, which is what most of us would expect if we had to undergo the same ordeal.
What all of us don't have to deal with, however, is this turning into major national news, being reported on TV channels everywhere and then quickly turning into fodder for humour (and some exercise-based criticism) on twitter.
Hahahahahahaah Will lift now be sent to Pakistan? @AmitShahOffice pic.twitter.com/UccOypd0Ql
— (@iambeingkunal) August 21, 2015
Sickular-liberal conspiracy http://t.co/ktqhufUS0x — Arunava Sinha (@arunava) August 21, 2015
Surprisingly @AmitShahOffice struck in state guest house lift for an hour got first hand experience of admin'tive functioning in Bihar :) — NiKHiL AnAnD (@NiKHiL_20July) August 21, 2015
News: Amit Shah stuck in a lift. PoopIndia: THIS IS THE REALITY OF MSM. NEVER UTTERED A WORD WHEN RAHUL GANDHI WAS STUCK IN A TOILET.
— Bajirao Manjhi (@bizzarebhide) August 21, 2015
Jis tarak kal amit shah ji lift mein fas gaye unki jagah kejri group ka koi hota to ismein bhi modi ji ka hi hath batate @AmitShahOffice
— Delhi ka free wifi (@Delhikafreewifi) August 21, 2015
The lift company is now going to have to deal with a CBI investigation, obviously. https://t.co/LQmuGxV3KC
— astha kapoor (@KapoorAstha) August 21, 2015
No he wasn't, he was just campaigning in it https://t.co/1uUvhCiRNv
— Rohan (@mojorojo) August 21, 2015
One rather enterprising twitter user actually predicted this might happen, after Home Minister Rajnath Singh himself had been stuck in a lift a little while ago.
"@timesofindia: Rajnath stuck in lift, pulled out through roof http://t.co/rFjBaQRFZi" what would they have done if it was @AmitShahOffice
— GlobalMouthful (@GlobalMouthful) April 9, 2015
And, as if this country doesn't do enough to caricature itself, the Bharatiya Janata Party is apparently concerned that the incident might have been deliberate.
Amit Shah Patna lift episode: BJP smells conspiracy http://t.co/vqXuOy5Fwf
— Zee News (@ZeeNews) August 21, 2015
Finally, the HuffingtonPost (or its algorithm) had a bit of fun with its "Also on the Huffington Post" portion of the page, below the news about Shah's rescue.