WASHINTON: President Donald Trump celebrated Diwali at a White House ceremony but omitted mentioning Hindus in his Twitter greeting, and again in a corrected tweet after the gaffe was pointed out by outraged netizens.
Trump hosted Diwali celebrations in the historic Roosevelt Room of the White House which was attended by prominent Indian-Americans, Indian-origin administration and diplomatic officials.
Diwali was celebrated across the world on November 7. In his first tweet, he forgot to greet the Hindus, for whom Diwali is the biggest festival in the calendar.
"Today, we gathered for Diwali, a holiday observed by Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains throughout the United States & around the world.
Hundreds of millions of people have gathered with family & friends to light the Diya and to mark the beginning of a New Year," Trump said in a tweet as he posted along with a YouTube link of the White House event.
The alert netizens were quick in identifying that he missed greeting the 'Hindus'.
"It is a major Hindu holiday," CNN's Congressional correspondent Manu Raju said in a tweet.
Trump soon deleted his first tweet, and replaced it with another one but again repeated the error.
"Today, we gathered for Diwali, a holiday observed by Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains throughout the United States & around the world.
Hundreds of millions of people have gathered with family & friends to light the Diya and to mark the beginning of a New Year," Trump said in his second tweet which again missed mentioning the Hindus.
"So after initially not including Hindus in his first Diwali tweet, Trump deletes that tweet and reposts another message. And still leaves out Hindus..,Raju said, as he was joined by several others on the social media.
A week late and still manages to screw it up