Mantri-ji, Ahankaar Chhodo, Maafi Maango: Shashi Tharoor to Scindia on 'esoteric thesaurus' barb

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has continued his ongoing online fight with the Civil Aviation Minister by demanding Jyotiraditya M. Scindia to drop his ego and seek an apology from the public concerning the flight crisis at the Delhi airport.

Quoting Minister's post on social media platform 'X,' Tharoor said "It would be prudent for the Honourable Minister to apologise to them for the agony and distress that his Government has caused, enabled, and overseen rather than engage in nugatory name-calling. Mantri-ji, ahankaar chhodo, Janata se maafi maango."



Tharoor also slammed the minister for leaving Congress back in 2020 to join the saffron party that had caused a major blow to the grand old party.

"My dear Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, it's a pity that since switching sides you have adopted the Modi Government’s uncaring attitude to the public," said Tharoor in his post on X.

He went on to say that 'crores worth of economic value lost, lakhs of lives disrupted, and thousands of people unable to go about their daily lives during this festive season - and all the Hon Minister can do is to engage in name-calling.'

The back and forth started with Shashi Tharoor blaming the Aviation Ministry for the recent havoc at the Delhi Airport. In a series of six posts on X, Tharoor said that the chaos at the Delhi airport is a result of the "neglect and incompetence" of the Ministry of Civil Aviation which has failed to put in place modern facilities like at other international airports of the world.

On Wednesday, Scindia claimed that unforeseen pollution incidents and the enforcement of GRAP-IV in Delhi led to a delay in runway recarpeting, pushing its commissioning by a month. In reply to this tweet, Tharoor said "Why wasn’t maintenance started earlier, so it could be completed before the beginning of winter? The winter fog and "pollution incidents" in Delhi are sadly an annual event that could and should have been planned for — which is exactly what your Ministry failed to do."

Tharoor has also termed the recent show cause notices issued by aviation regulator DGCA to the airlines as 'ineffective.'

Delhi airport crisis:
Very dense fog kept parts of Punjab, Haryana, West Rajasthan and Bihar enveloped, a Met department bulletin said.

Similar heavy fog was also reported in isolated parts of Delhi, West Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam. Moderate fog was observed in isolated parts of Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim, the IMD added.

Due to the ongoing cold wave, flight services saw disruptions causing delays and cancellations. Passengers faced inconvenience at airports, with many stranded. Over the past few days, dense fog has delayed or canceled over 100 flights till now.

Flights at the Indira Gandhi International Airport saw large-scale disruptions due to poor visibility. At the airport, visibility was reported between 50 and 100 meters from 12 am to 6.30 am. By 8 am, visibility had improved a bit at 300 meters, the IMD reported.