Cloudy with a chance of Elections: Indian PM risks embarrassment for votes

• India's current Prime Minister has been repeatedly invoking the Balakot air strike into his campaign speeches to woo voters.
  
• Modi's most recent attempt was a tweet where he shares an anecdote that he suggested that India should go ahead with the strike despite expert concerns it was cloudy saying, "Clouds could actually help our planes escape the radars."
  
• Despite many incursions, the Election Commission issued a clean chit to Modi — not once but twice.
  

Bidding on the nationalist sentiment in India, the Indian Prime Minister — Narendra Modi — just risked embarrassing himself in order to impress his voter base.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's account on Twitter published a statement attributed to the prime minister claiming, "Clouds could actually help our planes escape the radars."


The Tweet was deleted soon after. But during an interview with News Nation on National Technology Day, Modi made some similar statements admitting, "I said, ‘it's OK, there are clouds go ahead'. Chal pade (they started)."


Experts are now saying that if radars weren't able to see through clouds, planes wouldn't be able to function in the day-to-day. In fact, conventional radars have been able to detect aircraft movement at least since 1946.

A graver concern seems to be the revelation that India's military decisions might be based on mere assumptions by the Prime Minister.

Incidentally, the Election Commission has given Modi a clean chit for the invoking the Balakot air strikes in his campaign speeches — not once, but twice. First, when campaigning in Latur, and then again, when campaigning in Wardha, both in Maharashtra.