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Renowned Indian director slams Trump visit and suggests poverty has been edited out of tour

Ram Gopal Varma has also joked about Mr Trump’s love of large crowds

Clémence Michallon
New York
Monday 24 February 2020 11:46 EST
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Donald Trump arrives in Ahmedabad for two-day India tour

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An Indian director has slammed Donald Trump’s visit to India with a photo contrasting the US president’s “view” of the country with reality.

Ram Gopal Varma, an award-winning film director, producer and screenwriter who was born in Andhra Pradesh, commented on Mr Trump’s visit after the president touched down on Monday in Ahmedabad.

Mr Varma shared an image which he joked showed what Mr Trump would presumably see of India, compared with the “real view”.

The picture is split in half by a short wall. On one side – the one Mr Varma referred to as “Trump view” – is a neat street with an asphalt road, lined with trees.

On the other side, which Mr Varma called the “real view” is a littered dirt terrain.

Mr Varma’s tweet has proven popular, receiving more than 4,000 likes in less than two hours.

Mr Varma has also poked fun at the US president’s love of large crowd sizes, writing: “I luv it that our PM played on@realDonaldTrump‘s obsession for crowds and lured him by saying one crore [10,000,000] will come... But now since instead of one crore only one lak [100,000] came.

“I hope Donnie baby won’t sulk and cancel the trade deal with India... Trump is known to be revengeful.”

He added: “On the other hand since @realDonaldTrump can neither read nor count, he might imagine that the one-lak crowd is actually one-crore which could work for us.”

Mr Trump has embarked on a 36-hour tour of India.

The US president use the first day of his visit to India to reaffirm close ties with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and tease progress on a trade deal down the road.

But the day was largely devoted to a trio of enviable photo-ops: the largest rally of Mr Trump’s presidency, sandwiched between visits to a former home of independence leader Mohandas Gandhi and the Taj Mahal.

Additional reporting by agencies

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