Tharoor Files Complaint Against Prasad Over ‘Defamatory Remarks’

Shashi Tharoor raised objections after the union minister called him an “accused in a murder case.”

Shashi Tharoor raised objections after Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad allegedly called him an “accused in a murder case.”

(Photo: Image altered by The Quint)

Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday, 10 December, filed a criminal complaint against Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in Thiruvananthapuram over alleged defamatory remarks, reported news agency ANI.

On 31 October, Tharoor had sent a legal notice to the law minister for allegedly calling him an “accused in a murder case” after Prasad took offence to Tharoor "disrespecting Lord Shiva".

“He accused me of being involved in a murder case. So I sent him a legal notice to withdraw his comments but he took a defiant stand. I tried to bite my tongue but there comes a time when the straw breaks camel’s back.”

Shashi Tharoor told ANI.

Tharoor also raised objection to the remarks made by Prasad in a video he had tweeted in October. Through his notice to the Union minister, the Congress MP had sought an apology within 48 hours over “false and defamatory statements” and had threatened Prasad with legal action.

The Allegations and Counter-Allegations

Speaking at the Bangalore Lit Fest in October, Tharoor had allegedly likened PM Modi to a ‘scorpion sitting atop a Shiv Ling’, attributing the analogy to a journalist’s RSS source.

Tharoor, who was at the event after the release of his book ‘The Paradoxical Prime Minister,’ had said that the Prime Minister’s “personality cult” did not go down well with a lot of insiders in the RSS, according to NDTV.

“There’s an extraordinarily striking metaphor expressed by an unnamed RSS source to a journalist, that, “Modi is like a scorpion sitting on a Shiv ling, you can’t remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a <i>chappal</i> either.”

Shashi Tharoor, Senior Congress Leader