New Delhi:
The austerity drive, or to be more precise his Twitter comment about it, has landed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Shashi Tharoor in trouble.
Tharoor, who twitters on just about everything, made a flippant remark on the micro blogging site about flying cattle class.
He was asked by a journalist if the next time he travelled to Kerala, would it be on cattle class? In his reply Tharoor wrote, "Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!"
Ignoring the wit in this Twitter comment, the Congress snubbed Tharoor.
"Party strongly disapproves of the comment thousands of Indian's travel by economy class. It offended political and other sensibilities find this articulation unacceptable," Congress spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan said.
But has the austerity drive got the Congress going round in circles? Well, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna could certainly say so.
If he'd taken his usual government jet he could have got to Belarus in four hours, but it'll take 18 hours as the austerity bug makes ministers take a commercial flight.
Krishna has at least got permission from the Prime Minister no less to stretch his legs in Executive class.
And leaving budget restaurants behind, Tharoor has flown to Liberia. But nobody knows whether he is, indeed, flying cattle class. Because given how earnestly the Congress is pursuing its austerity mantra, his staff has clammed up.