Elections or no elections, our politicians always make it a point to grab the eyeballs. And more often than not, it’s for the wrong reasons.
When Congress leader the Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tweeted, it snowballed into a major controversy. In a rather off-the-cuff remark, Mr Tharoor wrote on Twitter that he is happy to travel ‘cattle class’ in solidarity with the 'holy cows’.
His remarks came in reply to a journalist’s question about the Congress’ ongoing austerity drive. But the party, which is literally worshipping its ‘go austere’ campaign these days, took these remarks in bad taste and called them insensitive. The party also distanced itself from his remarks.
An avid tweeter, Congress’ remarks came as a stern warning for the UN-returned politic, who later apologised to the public saying his tweet was ‘just a humorous comment and nothing else’.
After the incident, one would have thought that Mr Tharoor would take a while to come to terms with the setback and would be cautious in his future tweets. But no. After a few days, he tweeted again – and this time about Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi.
In his latest tweet, which came on Gandhi Jayanti, Mr Tharoor wrote that there is no need for a holiday on this day as for Gandhiji preached ‘work is worship’. This, too, was given thumbs down by the Congres who dubbed the comment as ‘his personal views’.
What I don’t understand is why make a fuss about such things when our politicians have much better things to do? What happened to someone’s freedom of speech? Why is politics taking over a man’s words? What Mr Tharoor said might have hurt some sentiments, but everyone has a right to express his or her opinion. Wonder Mr Tharoor answer this question in his next tweet.
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