Sonia's 'Bahuguna' smile: Mocking U'khand tragedy?

Dehradun, June 26: It was Rahul Gandhi's absence from the disaster which had struck the state first and now it's his mother's smile that has outraged one and all in the public and the political fraternity. Call it a an error or a political disaster, an ad print by the state and the centre has already done the damage.

Meant to assure victims of the government's support at every step, the advertisement ended up "smearing salt to the wounds" of the affected families (as reported by India Today).

While the state's lackadaisical response to the flood victims is just one instance of the inefficiency of the government, this blunder has added to the alleged insensitivity of the government. That is not all, the under-performed Bahuguna Government could not even get the ad right.

The first advertisement, which was carried in almost all the major newspapers featured a smiling Sonia and Bahuguna at the top. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, however, did not betray his demeanor.

Moreover, there were gross spelling and grammatical errors like 'relief measurers' instead of 'relief measures' and 'Uttrakhand', instead of 'Uttarakhand'. Realising a goof-up, the state information and PR department changed the ad, replacing the Sonia-Bahuguna smiling picture with the sombre ones.

However, a smiling picture of Yashpal Arya, the disaster management minister in Uttarakhand found a place at the top, apart from the Manmohan-Sonia-Bahuguna trio. The spelling of Uttarakhand was changed but there were no measures to change the 'measurers'.

To top it all, the government claims to have 'rescued' the survivors with the help of the BSF, ITBP and the IAF. Ironically, the four pictures that were printed only had the armed forces working. Perhaps, the government was busy typing out the content of the advertisement then! Never mind the 'helping' part, at least they could have performed well in drafting the content.

OneIndia News