Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who received backlash on social media for putting out a distorted map of India in his manifesto for the Congress presidential election, issued an apology for the "error" on Friday, and said "no one did such things on purpose".
“No one does such things on purpose. A small team of volunteers made a mistake. We rectified it immediately and I apologise unconditionally for the error,” Tharoor, who has more than eight million followers on Twitter, tweeted and shared fresh links to his manifesto in English and Hindi.
The manifesto carried a distorted map of India where parts of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were erroneously omitted. A functionary from the Congress leader's office said the distorted map was a "printing error". There was also a type in the previous manifesto.
{{/usCountry}}The manifesto carried a distorted map of India where parts of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh were erroneously omitted. A functionary from the Congress leader's office said the distorted map was a "printing error". There was also a type in the previous manifesto.
{{/usCountry}}Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) IT-cell head Amit Malviya hit out at Tharoor over the map error and tweeted he was hell-bent on dismembering India. In a subsequent tweet, Malviya threw light on a similar error committed by Tharoor in 2019.
In 2019, Shashi Tharoor tweeted a map of India where the northernmost territory of the country was missing. He later deleted the tweet and rectified his mistake.
Apart from Amit Malviya, BJP's national spokesperson RP Singh also censured the error on Tharoor's manifesto and said it was not a mistake or blunder but laid the policy of Congress about Jammu and Kashmir."
The Congress presidential election will be held on October 17. Shashi Tharoor and Mallikarjun Kharge are the main contenders and both filed their nominations on Friday.