Our foreign minister once read someone's else speech at UN: BJP's Ram Madhav recalls 2011 gaffe to mock UPA

HYDERABAD: Bharatiya Janata Party National General Secretary Ram Madhav on Sunday trained guns at the former Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government by recalling a faux pas that took place on a world platform in 2011.

He applauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for giving India recognition on the world stage. In the same breath, he added that our external affairs ministers were never noticed in the past under the previous government.

"There was a time when our external affairs ministers were never noticed at international forums including at the United Nations. There were funny instances like that of once an Indian foreign minister reading speech of foreign minister of another country. Today, the PM and the External Affairs Minister are noticed around the world," Madhav said.

The BJP National General Secretary was apparently referring to a gaffe in 2011 when the then external affairs minister in the UPA government SM Krishna inadvertently read out a Portuguese Minister's speech at the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York. 

Speaking at the UNSC during a debate on security and development, Krishna read the wrong speech for about three minutes. The error was noticed by the then Indian envoy to the UN Hardeep Singh Puri and the minister was then quickly alerted.

Krishna did not realise his mistake that he was reading Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado's speech, apparently because the first portion was related to general issues pertaining to the UN, development, and security.

"On a more personal note, allow me to express my profound satisfaction regarding the happy coincidence of having two members of the Portuguese Speaking Countries, Brazil and Portugal, together here today," was one of the statements made by Krishna during his speech before being corrected.

At the said event, the Portuguese minister had already spoken before India.