However, company founder Deepinder Goyal later announced reinstating the sacked agent, saying it was “an ignorant mistake” on the part of the employee.

A tweet from a user who goes by the handle “@Vikash67456607” triggered a major Twitter backlash, with the hashtag “Reject_Zomato” trending on top at the microblogging site. In response, Zomato apologised to Vikash and also issued a statement both in Tamil and English, stressing that the company stood for diversity. Earlier, Vikash tweeted he had ordered food on Zomato and complained that an item was missing.

“Customer care says amount can’t be refunded as I didn’t know Hindi. Also takes lesson that being an Indian I should know Hindi. Tagged me a liar as he didn’t know Tamil. @zomato not the way you talk to a customer,” he tweeted and tagged the company while sharing screenshots of his purported chat with the former customer care agent in question. In its statement in the two languages which started off with the traditional Tamil salutation “Vanakkam” Tamil Nadu, Zomato said the company was “sorry” for the behaviour of its former employee.

The customer also tagged the official handle of the Chief Minister and DMK women’s wing secretary Kanimozhi who tweeted, “The customer care of some companies operate only in select languages. It should be made mandatory for companies to serve their customers in their local language. A customer doesn’t necessarily need to know Hindi or English,” with the hashtag#Hindi-Teriyathu-Poda.

Dharmapuri MP Senthilkumar said, “U can mess up and get away anywhere else. But this is#Tamil-Nadu. None other than you to be blamed Mr @deepigoyal for not imparting basic training and for not respecting local languages and sentiments. Lesson learnt the hard way. Credit to people of TN.” Zomato further said it was building a Tamil version of its mobile app.