PM mocks Dyslexic students to ridicule Rahul, faced severe backlash

NEW DELHI: In a bid to ridicule Congress president Rahul Gandhi, PM Modi ended up mocking dyslexia and dyslexic children.

The incident happened on Saturday (March 2) during the question-answer session at the Smart India Hackathon in IIT, when a student from Dehradun introduced her project about dyslexia.

“Dyslexic children are those whose learning and writing pace is very slow, but creativity level and intelligence is quite good,” she said, to which the PM interjected and jokingly remarked, “Will your scheme help a child who is 40-50 years old?” –(referring to Rahul Gandhi).

As the students laughed, the girl replied in affirmative, “Yes.” To which the PM said, “In that case, the mother of such kids would be very happy.”

YouTube video

The National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD), a coalition of cross-disability rights groups from India termed his remark “uncalled for and totally insensitive response” demanded an apology from PM Modi for his “disrespectful and insensitive remarks” on dyslexia.

The NPRD said, “The PM should under no circumstances be making such a remark. It also displays scant respect for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 according to which this constitutes an offence. The least the PM can do is apologize for his remarks.”

The Prime Minister Modi also faced severe backlash on social media with many people took to Twitter to criticise him for his insensitive and thoughtless remark.