Rahul Gandhi takes dig at PM Modi over his wind turbine suggestions, ministers hit back
In a video, the prime minister is heard suggesting a CEO to use wind turbines to produce not only energy but oxygen and drinking water as well.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for suggesting that wind turbines can be used to generate clean drinking water, oxygen and energy.
“The real danger to India isn’t that our PM [Prime Minister Narendra Modi] doesn’t understand,” he said in a tweet. “It’s the fact that nobody around him has the guts to tell him.” The tweet was accompanied by a video of the prime minister making the suggestion to the chief executive officer of a company. The CEO in the video is Henrik Andersen, head of Danish wind turbine-maker Vestas, according to NDTV.
In the video, Modi is heard suggesting the CEO to use wind turbines to produce not just energy but oxygen and clean drinking water as well. He said that the task can be challenging and asked the CEO if his scientists can do anything in this direction.
The CEO can be heard replying that he is smiling at the prime minister’s passion and excitement. He adds that Modi can be an “idea generator” and that he would be challenging his scientists with his ideas.
The Bharatiya Janata Party hit back at Gandhi for his comments. Union minister Piyush Goyal slammed Gandhi, tagging a 2012 news report which states that a French engineering firm has found a way to extract drinking water from humid air through wind turbines.
“Nobody around Rahul Gandhi has the guts to tell him that he doesn’t understand,” he said in a tweet. “He mocks PM Narendra Modi’s ideas when CEO of the world’s leading company endorses them.”
Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani targeted Gandhi, saying that ignorance is bliss but rarely an individual in Indian politics makes “conscious effort to sustain his ignorance”. “It seems the real danger to the Congress flourishes unabashedly and no one seems to have the guts to tell the Yuvraj otherwise,” she said in a tweet.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra also attached two news reports stating that wind turbines can produce water and asked Gandhi to read the “the two scientific papers” he has attached. “Though I’m sure you won’t understand the complexity of the subject looking at the condition of your non-functioning mental ‘Turbines’!!” he tweeted.