‘Whose Hindi is perhaps like mine’: Shashi Tharoor on ‘rashtrapatni’ row.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said the row over Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury addressing President of India Droupadi Murmu as ‘rashtrapatni’ by ‘mistake’, as Chowdhury admitted, is a non-issue. It has nothing to do with corruption or government negligence, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said.

“A man, whose Hindi is perhaps like mine, made a mistake. He accepted it. Let’s move on. There are far greater issues in the country,” Tharoor said. The ‘rastrapatni’ comment triggered a massive political controversy after Union minister Smriti Irani raised the issue in the Lok Sabha and demanded an answer from Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi.

A face-off between Sonia Gandhi and Smriti Irani over this issue rocked Parliament on Thursday. Adhir Chowdhury tendered an apology to President Doupadi Murmu and said it was a slip of tongue. “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 tongue. I apologize and request you to accept the same,” the letter said.

Speaking to the media on the ‘rashtrapatni’ mistake, Adhir Chowdhury earlier said the slip of tongue was because Hindi is not his mother tongue. In his letter to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla in which he complained against Smriti Irani for ‘yelling’ the name of the President Droupadi Murmu “without prefixing Madame or Smt”, Chowdhury wrote, “I regret to say that this controversy erupted because of a mere slip of tongue on my partAs Shashi Tharoor commented on the episode, he said Adhir Chowdhury admitted his mistake before entering Parliament on Thursday. But inside the House, he was not allowed to speak, Tharoor said. “But when Smriti Irani started speaking, nobody stopped her. She spoke for 10 minutes. They should’ve allowed the person, whose name came up, to respond. We’re not happy with what happened. Adhir tried to respond twice but his mic wasn’t turned on. What can we say?” Tharoor added.