Tharoor apologises for his wrong tweet on Sumitra Mahajan

INDORE: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday spoke to former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's son and apologised for his tweet, which wrongly talked about the BJP veteran's death.

Tharoor and few media organisations had on Thursday announced the demise of Mahajan (78).

However, the Congress MP and others had later deleted the tweets after BJP leaders pointed out that she was fine.

On Friday, Tharoor said in a tweet, "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. Expressed my best wishes to her & her family."

After the Thursday night tweets by Tharoor and others about her demise, Mahajan was heard in an audio clip saying, "What should I do? These people carried the news without any confirmation. They should have at least confirmed with the district administration in Indore."

"The Central government and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla should take note of this," the BJP veteran said in the clip.

"This became all-India news. I started getting calls from my relatives in Mumbai. My brother's daughter responded to Tharoor's tweet asking who gave him this fake news," she said.

The former Lok Sabha speaker's younger son Mandar also put out a video clip Thursday night, saying that his mother was perfectly fine and asked people not to believe the false news about her.

Mahajan, popularly known as 'Tai' (elder sister in Marathi) had represented the Indore Lok Sabha seat eight times in a row from 1989 to 2014.