Raipur: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor defended Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Saturday alleging that the Parliament did not allow Chowdhary to speak. "Before entering Parliament, Adhir said he made a mistake, it was a slip of tongue and he had no bad intention. However, he wasn't allowed to speak. But when Smriti Irani started speaking, nobody stopped her and she went on for 10 minutes," he said. Tharoor was speaking at the convention of the All India Professional Congress in Raipur.
"They should have allowed the person to respond. Adhir tried to respond twice but his mic was not turned on," Tharoor said adding that one should let go of the matter. "This is not an issue, it has nothing related to corruption or govt negligence. A man, whose Hindi is perhaps like mine, made a mistake. He accepted it, let's move on," he justified.
Earlier on Friday Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury tendered an apology to President Droupadi Murmu over his "Rashtrapatni" remark. "I am writing to express my regret for having mistakenly used an incorrect word to describe the position you hold. I assure you that it was a slip of the tongue. I apologize and request you to accept the same," his letter to President Droupadi Murmu read.
Also read: "I apologize": Cong MP Adhir Chowdhury writes to Prez Murmu
Adhir Ranjan had also explained on Thursday that being a Bengali, he is not used to speaking in Hindi and so he made a mistake. Chowdhury had also said that if the President felt bad because of his remarks, he will personally meet her and apologise.
The Congress MP's reference to the President as 'Rashtrapatni' triggered a war of words between the ruling BJP and the Congress on Thursday at the Parliament with Union Minister Smriti Irani and Nirmala Sitharaman slamming Sonia Gandhi, the interim President of the Congress. "Congress should apologise to the President and the country, A tribal woman from a poor family who created history is being continuously demeaned by the Congress," Smriti Irani said.
