Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday faced backlash over his social media post taking a dig at examinations in Uttar Pradesh.
Amid the ongoing controversy over paper leaks, Tharoor shared a viral post depicting an answersheet with a question, “Uttar Pradesh kise kehte hain? (Define Uttar Pradesh.)”
The answer reads, “Woh pradesh jahan pariksha se pehle uttar pata chal jaaye use Uttar Pradesh kehte hain. (The state where answers are known before the exams is called Uttar Pradesh).”
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The Bharatiya Janata Party saw the social media post as an insult to people of Uttar Pradesh.
Responding to Tharoor’s post, Union minister Jitin Prasada wrote, “I don’t see the humour in running down my state and its people by stereotyping them with such condemnable remarks. Such an insult to UP is deplorable and must be condemned in strongest words.”
BJP spokesperson C R Kesavan called Tharoor a “repeat offender” and alleged that he had earlier insulted the people of northeast by “ridiculing their traditional attire as outlandish.”
“To belittle a serious issue, implying that the state of UP is a state of cheaters is indefensible and unpardonable. Splattering fancy English words does not necessarily make one civil and dignified,” he added.
Former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who lost against Shashi Tharoor in recently conculded Lok Sabha elections from Thiruvananthapuram, said, “Shameless crass politics of shaming other fellow Indians – thats the Congress way, ably demonstrated by this self-titled Global citizen.”
Pointing to the recent controversy around Sam Pitroda’s description of Indian nationals, he added, “Runs deep in the Cong DNA, this type of superiority complex.”
BJP leader and Rajasthan minister Rajyavardhan Rathore said, “Shashi, you having to resort to frivolity!! And in doing so condemning people of an entire state? You don’t see UP as yours, since you are deriding it.”
“When a person of your stature and intelligence mocks a State, why wouldn’t others do? And then what!!”
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma hit back at the Congress leader in what is popularly called ‘Tharoorian English’.
“This gentleman frequently indulges in satirizing various cultures (first Northeast and now UP) with remarkably caustic words,” wrote Sarma. “He has succumbed to the beguiling whispers of lunacy, his mind adrift in the ethereal mists of derangement.”
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