NEW DELHI: There seems to be no let-up in the goof-ups committed by public broadcaster Doordarshan.
And in a major mix-up, which resulted in red faces all around, DD posted a picture of the BJP Parliamentary Board meeting on its official Twitter account, albeit with a wrong caption: “JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!... A man dressed as Santa Claus feeds monkeys ahead of #Christmas at a zoo in #China”.
Amplifying the irony, the accompanying image was of the BJP’s decision-making body Parliamentary Board meeting held here at BJP headquarters.
The picture had Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
As Twitter users went ballistic poking fun at the blooper, Doordarshan through its official Twitter handle @DDNewsLive said: “An unrelated picture was inadvertently placed by side of the China zoo story. We have removed the tweet.”
But the damage had been done by then, as the tweet went viral on the micro-blogging site.
Doordarshan has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the recent past, facing criticism over a series of goof-ups by its anchors, and other employees.
Recently, the public broadcaster had to issue an apology when it made fun of popular writer Chetan Bhagat. When the technocrat-turned-litterateur objected to the comment asking why he was being mocked through the official handle of DD News, the public broadcaster apologised.
The public broadcaster has been plagued by similar mistakes. Earlier, a Doordarshan anchor made many gaffes while covering the International Film Festival of India in Goa, while another news anchor read out Chinese President Xi Jingping’s name as ‘Eleven’ Jingping.
According to Doordarshan officials, the mistakes were a direct fallout of employing a huge number of casual employees on its rolls to man the public broadcaster’s day-to-day operations.