2 Indian ministers left red-faced

Two Indian ministers were left red-faced yesterday after their attempts to glorify Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government on Twitter backfired spectacularly.

Critics have accused Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of running a relentless propaganda campaign on social media to increase its base of supporters.

Media reports have suggested the party employs a "backroom army of trolls" to attack its rivals and run smear campaigns.

Yesterday, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal shared a video purportedly showing India's first semi high-speed train zipping past at lightning speed, in order to trumpet Modi's pet "Make in India" initiative.

But it turned out to be a digitally altered video with the speed of the train enhanced by two times, prompting a backlash from Twitter users.

"Massive respect for Piyush Goyal. He just made the video 2X times faster and called it semi-high speed train when he could have made it 6X times faster and called it super high speed train," wrote one user.

Goyal has yet not commented on the video, which can still be seen on his timeline.

India's junior minister for finance and shipping, Pon Radhakrishnan also found himself at the receiving end after inadvertently criticising his own government in multiple tweets.

The minister retweeted posts with the hashtag #ModiforNewIndia without reviewing the content.