Congress minority department mixes up Guru Nanak and Guru Gobind Singh, deletes tweet

On Guru Gobind Singh’s birth anniversary on 2 January, the handle @INCMinority named the wrong Sikh guru in its wishes, but quickly deleted the tweet.

Screenshot of the now-deleted tweet put out by Congress minority department | Photo: Twitter

New Delhi: The Congress minority department’s Twitter handle — @INCMinority — committed a faux pas on Guru Gobind Singh’s birth anniversary on 2 January, tweeting out the correct image but wrongly identifying him as Guru Nanak Dev.

The tweet, which went out Thursday afternoon, was deleted soon, but not before some users clicked a screenshot and called out the Congress on social media.

The deleted tweet called Guru Nanak Dev the “tenth Sikh Guru” and greeted people on “Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s Prakash Prav (sic)”. The fact is that Guru Nanak was the founder of the Sikh faith, and the first of its ten gurus. According to tradition, Guru Nanak was born a fortnight after Diwali, and his birth anniversary is celebrated around November every year, though the Akal Takht, the highest temporal body of Sikhism, has decreed that it should be celebrated on Baisakhi according to the Nanakshahi calendar.

Last year, Guru Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary was celebrated with much fanfare by Sikhs across the world, and the Kartapur Sahib Corridor was opened between India and Pakistan on the occasion.

‘It was a mistake’

Asked about the error, Congress communications secretary Pranav Jha told ThePrint: “It was an inadvertent mistake… Someone tweeted a wrong text with the wrong picture. As soon as the mistake was realised, the tweet was deleted. This has happened once in the past also and could have happened with anyone… it’s only a human error.”

However, Twitter users were quick to catch the mistake. Writer and marketing professional Sandip Ghose tweeted the screenshot, saying: “Could this be true? Beyond imagination that Congress party minority cell does not know the difference between Guru Nanak Dev ji and Guru Gobind Singh ji, despite Manmohan Singh and Captain Amarinder.”

The erroneous tweet is no longer available on the social media platform, also seems to have been cleared from the Google cache.