'Deplorable': Shashi Tharoor Faces BJP's Ire Over Social Media Post Mocking Exams In UP

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday drew flak over his social media post in which he mocked competitive examinations in Uttar Pradesh amid recent incidents of paper leaks.

Tharoor shared an image depicting an answer sheet with a question, “Uttar Pradesh kise kehte hain? (Define Uttar Pradesh.)” The answer to the question reads, “Woh pradesh jahan pariksha se pehle uttar pata chal jaaye use Uttar Pradesh kehte hain. (The state where answers come out before the exams is called Uttar Pradesh).”

BJP leaders reacted to the post and slammed the Congress leader for his “condemnable remarks stereotyping” the state.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma took to microblogging site X and wrote, “This gentleman frequently indulges in satirizing various cultures (first Northeast and now UP) with remarkably caustic words. He has succumbed to the beguiling whispers of lunacy, his mind adrift in the ethereal mists of derangement.”

Minister of State (MoS), Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada called Tharoor’s remarks for Uttar Pradesh “deplorable”. “I don’t see the humour in running down my state and its people by stereotyping them with such condemnable remarks. Such an insult to UP is deplorable and must be condemned in the strongest words,” he wrote in an X post.

BJP leader Rajeev Chandrashekhar called Tharoor’s post a “shameless crass politics of shaming other fellow Indians”

BJP spokesperson CR Kesavan called Shashi Tharoor a “repeated offender” and said that “implying UP is a state of cheaters is indefensible and unpardonable”.

“Shashi Tharoor is a repeat offender who had earlier gravely insulted our North East brothers and sisters by ridiculing their traditional attire as outlandish. To belittle a serious issue, implying that the state of UP is a state of cheaters is indefensible and unpardonable. Splattering fancy English words does not necessarily make one civil and dignified,” Kesavan said.

BJP leader Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore accused Shashi Tharoor of not seeing UP as his own and, therefore, “deriding” it.

“Shashi, you having to resort to frivolity!! And in doing so condemning people of an entire state? You don’t see UP as yours, since you are deriding it. How I see Kerala is it’s my state, it’s my people. Bright, young, dynamic Keralites have served with me in the Army and rubbed shoulders with me in ‘Team India’. When a person of your stature and intelligence mocks a State, why wouldn’t others do? And then what!!” an X post by Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said.