Not satisfied with Shashi Tharoor’s apology, the Rajasthan Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot, on Friday maintained that the Minister of State for External Affairs should resign for making “condemnable remarks” on the austerity measures taken by the Congress.
The senior Congress leader said Mr. Tharoor, being a “wise man”, should quit voluntarily instead of waiting for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or the party high command to seek his resignation.
“I said it yesterday that he (Tharoor) should apologise to the country, voluntarily offer his resignation because this incident is like that,” Mr. Gehlot told reporters here while criticising Mr. Tharoor’s “cattle class” comment.
When it was pointed out that Mr. Tharoor had since apologised for the controversial comment, Mr. Gehlot repeated his demand and said “Whatever remarks he made, I believe, were condemnable and that’s why I had to say (that he should resign).”
He said every government, Central and state, take such measures in situations like drought, earthquake, flood and “common people welcome such steps“.
Facing an all-round attack for saying that he would travel “cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows”, Mr. Tharoor on Friday apologised for the comment and said he meant no disrespect to economy class travellers.
