On August 15, as the national flag fluttered across the country on its 72nd Independence Day, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah hoisted the tricolour at the party’s headquarters in Delhi – or at least he tried to.
In this video broadcast live by Doordarshan, Shah stands near the flag pole and tugs at the string but the flag, instead of going up, steadily drops and touches the ground. A visibly embarrassed Shah pulls at the string again, hurriedly, and the flag finally goes up. He then salutes the tricolour with his back to it.
“Tch, tch, tch... disaster” goes a voice in the background as Shah flubs that first attempt. The voice is presumed to be that of a Doordarshan correspondent present at the site.
The video went viral on social media and many mocked Shah for his fumble. As the video caught on, the public broadcaster deleted its tweets about it, Alt News reported. The BJP, on the other hand, was more composed and did not remove the clip it had posted on its Twitter handle.