Congress IT cell head Divya Spandana stirred a social media storm on Tuesday, 18 September, after she tweeted an old video interview of Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking about his educational qualifications.
Spandana shared the video with a caption in Hindi, claiming that the “saheb admits that he has studied till high school, but he now has a graduation degree from 1979!”
She says that she found the interview from 1998 with “great difficulty.”
Is the Video Real?
Yes, Modi was giving an interview to Rajeev Shukla for his show Ru-Ba-Ru, in his capacity as the BJP General Secretary.
However, a cropped version of the clip leads one to believe that Modi admitted to studying only up to high school. However, he soon continues and says the following:
“Baad mein hamare sangh ke ek adhikari the unke bade agrah par main external exam dena shuru kiya. Toh Delhi University se maine BA kar liya external exam de kar ke. Phir bhi unka agrah raha toh maine MA kar liya external exam se. Maine kabhi college ka darwaza dekha nahi. University mein pehla aagaya mein”
This translates to him saying that he pursued Bachelor of Arts from Delhi University by taking external examinations, and went on to complete his Masters of Arts the same way. He added that he has “never seen the gates of a college, but came first in the University.”
While Spandana soon clarified, quoting AltNews, that she had not tweeted the entire interview. However, the tweet still exists with over 3.5 thousand retweets, and 6.5 thousand likes.
Row Over PM Modi’s Educational Qualification
Over the last few years, PM Modi has been accused of fudging his educational qualifications. The Delhi High Court issued a notice to Delhi University, in the case relating to disclosing information about students who passed out in 1978. Incidentally, Modi claims that he passed out of Delhi University’s BA course in 1978.
The Gujarat University in May 2016, claimed that Narendra Modi scored 62.3 percent as an external student of the varsity, amid then raging row over the PM’s educational qualification.
(With inputs from AltNews.)
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