DNA / Maleeva Rebello / Tuesday, January 1, 2013 19:16 IST
Minister of State, HRD, Shashi Tharoor wants the name of the Delhi gang-rape victim to be revealed. On Tuesday, he tweeted, "Wondering what interest is served by continuing anonymity of #DelhGangRape victim. Why not name&honour her as a real person w/own identity?
The minister in another tweet added, "Unless her parents object,she should be honoured&the revised anti-rape law named after her. She was a human being w/a name,not just a symbol."
Interest in knowing the victim's name was also expressed earlier in the day after the village sarpanch of Medwar Kallan in Uttar Pradesh, the Delhi braveheart victim's native village, wanted to name a new primary school after her.
As per law in India the name and details of a rape victim are not disclosed to protect the identity of the victim.
So the tweets by Tharoor are sure to stir controversy in the country as the Delhi gang-rape is witnessing protests from people all over the country.
This is not the first time that Shashi Tharoor has got into trouble over his tweets.
In 2009, Tharoor was in a soup as controversy erupted when he tweeted saying that he would travel in "in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!". The remark on Twitter, equated economy class travellers to cattle. It also seemed like he was taunting his party, the Indian National Congress, for their austerity drive. The issue caused a lot of political uproar but was resolved when Tharoor met the Congress high command and offered them an apology or an explanation, details of the same were not clear.
Besides, this Tharoor was also involved in an IPL mess in 2010 when Lalit Modi published the shareholders details of IPL team Kochi Tuskers franchise owners, Rendezvous Sports World (RSW) group on Twitter and also mentioned that he was asked by an influential Union Minister not to get into details of Sunanda Pushkar, who was given equity of approximately 4.5% of the total equity which was estimated by the media to be worth Rs70 crore. Tharoor denied the allegations but was forced by the Congress leadership to hand in his resignation as Minister of State in Ministry of External Affairs. Tharoor went on to marry Sunanda Pushkar in August 2010.
In 2012, Narendra Modi launched a personal attack on Sunanda and Shashi Tharoor while addressing a rally in Himachal Pradesh by calling her a Rs50 crore girlfriend. The Gujarat CM was using Tharoor's IPL controversy as an example of UPA's double standards on corruption. Tharoor reacted by tweeting, "My wife is worth a lot more than your imaginary 50 crores. She is priceless. But you need2be able2love some1 2understand that".
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