Heavily trolled on social media over his mistranslation of Prime Minister Modi’s speech at the BJP rally held in Thrissur on Monday, state BJP general secretary K Surendran put it all down to audibility issues.
Rubbishing rumours that Modi had asked him to leave the dais, Surendran said that he could not translate Modi’s speech properly only because he was at the other end of the stage and therefore could not hear what the Prime Minister was saying.
As the translation woes persisted, state BJP president V Muraleedharan took over from him. Though a video of the event shows PM Modi gesturing to Muraleedharan to take over, Surendran told OnManorama that he had sought the state President’s help.
Why Surendran is in a translation soup
“First of all I have to apologize to the people here in Kerala because I am late in coming here. I should have come sooner. But now, I promise that this will not happen.” But unfortunately, this is what Surendan translated: “I am very happy to arrive here in Kerala. From a long time, I have made regular visits to Kerala. But now the situation here in Kerala is not the same. There are big changes taking places here. I am very happy.” (Translation by Indian Express).
I have translated speeches before
Surendran aired his knowledge of Hindi by citing past examples of having translated both Modi and Amit Shah’s earlier speeches in Kerala for the public.
He also refused to take the bait put out by Congress MLA VT Balram on his Facebook page which depicted a pictorial chart displaying the Hindi alphabet.
Playing down the social media backlash over his poor language skills, Surendran said it was just another day for them. Only this time, he happened to be their target.