Scindia responds to Tharoor criticism with ‘thesaurus’ jibe

The minister’s remarks came after Tharoor, in a series of posts on X, alleged that the “chaos” at Delhi airport was a result of the “neglect and incompetence”

Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday responded to allegations by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on issues faced by passengers and airlines at the Delhi airport — caused by fog conditions and maintenance work at one of the runways. Scindia said the Thiruvananthapuram MP was “lost in his esoteric world of thesaurus”, adding that “data mining of selective press articles from the internet qualifies as research” to him.

Nagpur: Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotirditya Scindia addresses a press conference, in Nagpur, Friday Jan. 12, 2024. (PTI Photo)(PTI01_12_2024_000201B) (PTI)

The minister’s remarks came after Tharoor, in a series of posts on X, alleged that the “chaos” at Delhi airport was a result of the “neglect and incompetence” of the ministry of civil aviation which has failed to install modern facilities.

While Tharoor termed the situation a “Modi government-made disaster”, the minister hit back and called him an “arm-chair critic”.

“Delhi Airport has been in chaos recently... Thousands of peoples’ lives and schedules have been disrupted by a regular, predictable, foggy winter day. It’s a Modi Government-made disaster, a result of the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s neglect and incompetence,” Tharoor said in a post.

The minister responded: “It is for someone who is lost in his esoteric world of thesaurus that data mining of selective press articles from the internet qualifies as ‘research’. Here are some actual facts for arm-chair critic Shashi Tharoor and the Congress IT Cell that might help tackle their lack of depth in understanding of technical sectors like civil aviation.”

Tharoor also mentioned that the Centre began maintenance work on one of the two CAT III-compliant runways despite knowing it would not be ready before winter. “...a crane... was blocking operation of CAT III-B on one runway,” Tharoor wrote.

To this, the minister responded by saying that cranes were used only when there were no visibility issues for flight operations.

Scindia added “Runway maintenance work is a critical... maintenance was taken on priority before the onset of the fog season. However, due to pollution... the recarpeting got delayed, resulting in a delay of one month in its commissioning. The revamped RWY is getting operational this week”.