Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): After her controversial remarks that government officials are there only to "pick up our (leaders') slippers", senior BJP leader Uma Bharti has written a letter to veteran Congress leader Digvijay Singh, saying she will improve her language, but he would also do the same.
As a video containing Bharti's critical comments against bureaucracy surfaced on social media on Monday, Singh had criticised her for telling him to speak less, while she herself used "highly objectionable" words against bureaucrats.
He had also sought an apology from her over her comments.
On Tuesday, Bharti in a brief letter to Singh said, "I am deeply hurt by my own words. I used to tell you (Singh) repeatedly that you don't use moderate language will improve my language from now on, if you can do the same, then do it."
She also quoted a 'chaupai' (verse) from the epic 'Ramayana' in her letter to the Congress leader. Meanwhile, taking to Twitter, Bharti has issued many clarifications about the controversy.
In one of the tweets, Bharti stated about the change of behaviour of the officers during her days when she was the union minister, in another when she became the chief minister and when she was expelled from the party.
READ: Uma Bharti says sorry for her 'intemperate language'
Bharti also tweeted about an incident of 2000 when she was the union tourism minister.
"In the year 2000, when I was the tourism minister at the Centre, I had a tour of Bihar with chief minister Rabri Devi and her husband Lalu Prasad Yadav from Patna to Bodh Gaya by helicopter. A senior IAS officer was sitting in the front seat. Lalu Yadav spit in a container and asked the IAS officer to keep it near the front window, to which the officer obliged."
In another tweet, Bharti stated that when she was made the Bihar in-charge in 2005-06, "I appealed to the bureaucrats not to lift the spit containers of any minister, instead take up a file and pen in hand and also exhorted the bureaucrats to "stay away from useless and ruling leaders".
After a video containing Bharti's critical comments against bureaucracy surfaced on social media, the former union minister had on Monday expressed regret over her intemperate language used during an interaction with a delegation of representatives from other backward classes (OBCs) at her home in Bhopal.
Agency inputs
