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Tharoor apologises to family after Twitter gaffe on Mahajan’s health
Minutes after his tweet, several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and Mahajan’s family refuted Tharoor’s information and said the 78-year-old leader was healthy and fine.
An unverified erroneous tweet by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan’s health caused confusion and outrage on social media on Thursday night before the former Union minister deleted the message and apologised to the family.
Tharoor’s tweet about Mahajan’s health, which was not accompanied by any official source or information, led to other politicians, including Nationalist Congress Party leaders Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule, to put out now-deleted statements. Some news outlets, including HT, initially ran web stories, quoting the Congress member of Parliament’s tweet.
Minutes after his tweet, several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and Mahajan’s family refuted Tharoor’s information and said the 78-year-old leader was healthy and fine. They also pointed out that Tharoor had no official source of information, and hadn’t verified the facts before tweeting, leaving the Congress leader with no option but to delete his tweet and apologise.
BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya replied to Tharoor, saying Mahajan,78, was healthy and wishing her a long life. Other leaders also said that Mahajan was admitted to Bombay hospital in Indore for mild fever and was doing fine. She had also tested negative for Covid-19.
Responding to Vijayvargiya, Tharoor thanked him and tweeted, “I have deleted the tweet. I wonder what motivates people to invent and spread such evil news that takes in people. My best wishes for Sumitra ji’s health and long life.”
Her younger son, Mandar Mahajan, put out a video message as well. “My mother is perfectly healthy. The rumours about her demise are absolutely false,” he said.
On Friday morning, news agency ANI spoke to Mahajan. “How could news channels run a report on my so called demise without even cross checking with the Indore administration? My niece refuted Mr. Tharoor on Twitter but what was the urgency in announcing without confirmation?” she said.
Hours later, Tharoor said that he apologised to Mahajan’s son. “Spoke to Sumitra Mahajan ji’s son to convey my sincere apologies at last night’s misinformation. He was most gracious & understanding. Delighted to hear she is very much better,” he tweeted.
