A tweet from former Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s official handle set tongues wagging in the political circles on Sunday evening after it claimed that the BJP leader was ending his “18 year stint of public service”.
The now-deleted tweet came days after he was humbled by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in the Lok Sabha elections from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram constituency.
The BJP leader later issued a statement clarifying that the tweet was put out by a new young intern of his team. “Today marks the end of my 18 years long stint as an MP and my three years as Minister of State in the Council of Ministers under Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji,” he said.
The former minister said he deleted the tweet as it had created confusion among a section of people about his future political work.
“My work and commitment to taking India forward and in particular Thiruvananthapuram as a karyakarta of BJP remains as relentless as before,” he added.
In the tweet, the former MP had claimed that he was ending his “public service” but would continue to support and work for the BJP.
“Today curtains down on my 18 year stint of public service , of which 3 years I had the privilege to serve with PM Narendra Modi ji's TeamModi2.0,” the post had said.
“I certainly didn’t intend to end my 18 years of public service, as a candidate who lost an Election, but that’s how its turned out,” he added.
Tharoor was quick to respond to the BJP leader’s post, saying there was much more he could contribute to the country through public service.
“As someone who discussed various issues with you during your stint in government, I have no doubt that there is much more you can contribute to our country through public service, @RajeevRC_X . Elective office is only one path (and you are young enough to have another crack at that too!) All the best for the future,” the Congress leader wrote on X.
Chandrasekhar, who was the Electronics and Information Technology minister in the previous Modi government, failed to unseat Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram even as the BJP made considerable inroads in the constituency. Tharoor won the polls by 16,077 votes.