For the past few days, and “coincidentally” just as the Agusta Westland scandal was playing out, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was going all out to show and claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s educational degrees were fake. He made wild allegations, helped trend hashtags like #12thPassModi, questioned media for not covering his verbal diarrhoea.
The Aam Aadmi Party had alleged that a degree obtained by a namesake of him has been shown as as his own, which Arvind Kejriwal said amounted to outright “cheating”. Kejriwal told a press conference that he can assert with “full responsibility” that Delhi University’s records have no mention of “Narendra Damodardas Modi” and that one “Narendra Kumar Mahavir Prasad Modi” had taken admission in 1975.
Today finally BJP President Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley took a joint press conference, to set the record straight and placed in public domain all the documents pertaining t Modi’s degrees, right from marksheets to graduation certificates.
Far from apologising or just letting this embarrassment pass, Aam Aadmi Party went on an aggressive with AAP leader Ashutosh claiming in a press conference that the degrees were fake. Various twisted claims were made which according to AAP and it supporters proved that degrees were fake.
The official handle of the party claimed that since mark-sheet has “Kumar” whereas Degree doesn’t have the same, the degree was fake:
The name on mark-sheet is Narendra Kumar Damodar Das Modi, where as on degree it is Narendra Damodar Das Modi.
It means, degree is fake.
— Aam Aadmi Party- AAP (@AamAadmiParty) May 9, 2016
People on social media scoffed at this hilarious claim by citing their own examples:
My name is different on my 10th certificate, something else on my 12th, another version on the BA and a fourth iteration on my MA degree.
— Shubhashish (@shubHASHISH) May 9, 2016
HAHAHA… Even my name is Dipesh Kumar on my degree… https://t.co/VW7FOZHIMZ
— Dipesh (@pateldipesh) May 9, 2016
Next, some AAP supporters, who are often retweeted by Arvind Kejriwal tried to spread an untruth that the day on which Modi’s degree was issued was a Sunday. To show this, all they had to do was misread and misrepresent “thirtieth” as “thirteenth”
Itne bade chutiye hain bygod, thirtieth Ko thirteenth padh rahe hain #AAPtardpic.twitter.com/I8hQTuojZd
— अंकित (@indiantweeter) May 9, 2016
Further, AAP claimed that the marksheet showed the year 1977 but the graduation certificate showed the year 1978:
AAP PC LIVE:
Biggest Expose – Mark sheet shows 1977, and Degree shows year as 1978. How is this possible?— Aam Aadmi Party- AAP (@AamAadmiParty) May 9, 2016
This too was untrue as revealed by a social media user. AAP cherry picked data from an earlier marksheet while ignoring the latest marksheet:
Now @AamAadmiParty has become officially blind. Because both mark-sheet and certificate shows 1978 only. pic.twitter.com/RZrmkpAqlR
— Raju Das | ৰাজু দাস (@rajudasonline) May 9, 2016
Further, a few users also noted that Graduation certificates are often given long past the exam date:
@indiantweeter I completed my engg. from DU in 2007. Just checked my own degree, it says convocation held in 2008. @bwoyblunder
— Vipul Kaushik (@VipulKaushik85) May 9, 2016
Another claim of AAP was that the degree and the marksheet had 2 different roll numbers:
Two Different Roll Nos on the BA Mark-sheet & BA degree. Definitely not a frequent observation! pic.twitter.com/ydydDmwr2Z
— Aam Aadmi Party- AAP (@AamAadmiParty) May 9, 2016
Again, they picked up the wrong marksheet. The latest marksheet from 1978 had the same roll number as the degree:
AAP even went on to analyse the marks in the final marksheet. Yes, in the above examples this marksheet was not available to AAP but suddenly they got it. They claimed that the total of marks was not correct:
Total is 136 or Four Hundered And Eighty Nine?
Passed with those marks? How? pic.twitter.com/eVtMkSxOwd
— Aam Aadmi Party- AAP (@AamAadmiParty) May 9, 2016
Again, via deliberate misrepresentation, AAP tried to fool the people. The marks total was correct and AAP had conflated column headings with marks:
Some people seem to be confused about Modi’s mark sheet, hence I have super-imposed a grid on it to make it clear: pic.twitter.com/M70MNjGkph
— Raju Das | ৰাজু দাস (@rajudasonline) May 9, 2016
Even Congress IT cell joined in with AAP and made another hilarious claim, that why is the certificate titled “Members of the Court of Gujarat University”:
On the top- “Members of the Court of Gujarat University”
Should it not be “Members of the Board” ?#PMfarziDegreepic.twitter.com/ki60D9zHh4— Vinod Mehta (@DrunkVinodMehta) May 9, 2016
This too had a simple explanation. The Gujarat University Act specifically states that “The Court” is the executive body which shall confer degrees:
Hm @DrunkVinodMehta shows why 5th Pass Sonia is his leader. It is “Court” b/c that’s what Guj University Act says. pic.twitter.com/YsT00HT7S2
— saurabh srivastava (@SKS_Mumbai) May 9, 2016
And the most hilarious claim came from yet another parody account of journalist late Vinod Mehta, which happens to be one of the most active supporters of AAP on Twitter. This is what this genius had to argue:
PIC 1 : Font used in degree : Old English Text MT
PIC 2 : Microsoft copyrights it in 1992, DU had it in 1978?True? pic.twitter.com/2Q00GNnHby
— AAP Ka Mehta (@DaaruBaazMehta) May 9, 2016
As per this genius, fonts were invented only after computers came into being! He was corrected by many about this fact that he had perhaps no idea about.
Not only that, anyone with normal eyesight and normal IQ will see that both the fonts are not the same. Just look at the way “M” has been written in both the images. They are different fonts. Unsurprisingly the blind supporters of AAP couldn’t see that.
