Commonwealth Games 2018: Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, ex-Sports Minister Vijay Goel congratulates Saina Nehwal and co for winning '3 gold medals'

What's the story?

The Gold Coast Commonwealth Games are proving to be highly successful for India. Placed at the 3rd spot with 19 medals (10 gold, 4 silver, 5 bronze) in the medal tally, behind Australia and Canada, India's performance has been exceptional so far.

Presumably, getting carried away by this successive news, the Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu tweeted that India has been victorious in bagging three golds in Badminton. But the funnier fact is that former Union Sports Minister, Vijay Goel exposed his ignorance by thinking on similar lines.

Venkaiah Naidu's tweet

Vijay Goel's tweet

In case you didn't know...

During the 2016 Rio Olympics, former Union Sports Minister wished track and field athlete Srabani Nanda ahead of her event at the Rio Olympics 2016 on social media, using the image of Dutee Chand.

Not only that, he had also wished gymnast Dipa Karmakar ahead of her appearance in women's vault finals, in which Goel not only misspelt her name but also used an image of himself in the post on Twitter, instead of the athlete. He had further spelt her name as 'Karmanakar', much to the shame of the athletic world.

The heart of the matter

What many people fail to realise owing to paying minimal heed to news which encourages such tweets, for they miss out on the fact that India is yet to start playing the individual event matches for badminton.

The Vice President of India, too, got guiled by this folly and committed the blunder of thinking that India has bagged 3 golds in Badminton. He even congratulated Satwik Sairaj and Ashwini Ponnappa for winning a gold in the Mixed Doubles, Kidambi Srikanth for winning another gold in the Men's Singles and of course, Saina Nehwal for winning yet another gold, supposedly, in the Women's Singles.

What he failed to understand, along with Vijay Goel, is that this was a group event and not an individual event. So the medal count would have increase by one and not three if you win in a team event.

It's hoped that the VP will correct his huge mistake and modify or take down the tweet at the earliest.

What's next?

Having concluded with the team event for badminton with golden colours, India will now be heading towards the individual and doubles events from Wednesday. P.V Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, who all are raring to go, will begin their individual medal hunt from Wednesday. All of them have received byes in the first round and are to begin playing from the second.

Author's take

Ignorance can be a very bad thing in any case. But if you are in a position of influential power, it could lead to the fanning of incorrect news. The Vice President of India's erroneous tweet is sure to invite guffaws. So is the tweet by former Union Sports Minister, Vijay Goel equally amusing.