Mahesh Sharma calls New Zealand PM McCullum, continues tradition of political gaffes

Here are a few more gaffes where politicians wrongly named other leaders

Political gaffes are not  rare these days and on Thursday India's cultural minister Mahesh Sharma kept up the tradition when called Prime Minster of New Zealand John Key '' McCullum". He said, "His Excellency Prime Minister McCullum". This can't really be termed as a slip of tongue as the two names, John Key and Brandon McCullum, the former cricketer of New Zealand, don't come close. 

The event was organized to promote New Zealand tourism in India and, apart from Sharma and Key, Brendon McCullum, who earlier skippered that country's cricket team in all three forms of the game, was also present. 

This wasn't the only gaffe at the event. Moments after the minister made the blunder, Bollywood actor Sidharth Malhotra, who is New Zealand tourism's ambassador in India, rose to speak but could not recall Sharma's name. After fumbling for a few seconds, he said wittily "It's payback time". 

Here's a list of other gaffes by India's leaders

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, back in 2013, when he was campaigning for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he called the father of the nation as Mohanlal Karamchand Gandhi, instead of Mohandas. 

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tweeted about his meeting with former PM of Britain David Cameron. But he wrote George Cameron instead of David Cameron. Twitter users had a great day trolling Arun Jaitley.

Screenshot of the Tweet

The best came from veteran BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani. In 2009, he, while addressing a public gathering, he mixed the names of two famous people, one of them being the most wanted terrorist of the world back them. He called Osama bin Laden as Obama bin Laden. This was played in loops on television.

Rahul Gandhi has been the absolute favourite when it comes to gaffes. 'Aalo ki factory', copying the condolence message for Nepal earthquake victims from Internet, or getting confused between 'balatkar' and 'bhrashtachaar', Rahul Gandhi has done it all.