Sports minister Vijay Goel referred to PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik as Olympic gold medallists.
Sports Minister Vijay Goel's Rio misadventure continues well after the Olympic are over. To misspelling and mixing up the names of athletes and almost getting his accreditation cancelled in Brazil, Mr Goel has now added what he has called a "slip of tongue".
On Sunday, Mr Goel briefed the media on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with "Rio gold medallists PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik."
"PM Modi today met with Khel Ratna, Dhyaanchand and Dronacharya awardees. The sportspersons also included our two Rio gold medalists PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik," Mr Goel said on camera. While PV Sindhu won a badminton silver, wrestler Sakshi Malik had won a bronze at Rio.
A video of the minister's gaffe was widely shared on Twitter, accompanied by jokes and jibes."People shouldn't make an issue out of a slip of tongue, this can happen at times. I wanted to say medallist but ended up saying gold medallist and anyway, who knows we might bag a gold medal in the coming years," Vijay Goel said.
He has been trolled before when he had wished good luck to track athlete Srabani Nanda, but posted a picture of Duttee Chand to go with it; he also misspelled the name of star gymnast Dipa Karmakar as "Dipa Karmanakar" on Twitter.
The sports minister, who took over only in July, was in the centre of a big row during the Rio Games when the organising committee threatened to cancel his accreditation on grounds that his entourage had misbehaved and tried to enter areas without valid passes.
Mr Goel had pointed out that there was no allegation of high-handed or bad behaviour against him and also said, "They should have told things orally, we are not informed anything and they wrote straight away to Chef-de-Mission. Language is also a main problem here, maybe there is a misunderstanding because of that."