Indian politician Shashi Tharoor slams major newspaper over ‘fake quote’; media outlet responds

Popular Indian politician Shashi Tharoor didn’t mince words after seeing a major newspaper’s report where “a wholly fictitious statement” was attributed to him.

Taking to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Tharoor called out Times of India (ToI) for its coverage of a Press conference where his party, the Indian National Congress, discussed its plans and latest developments.

“The @timesofindia hit a new low today by inventing a wholly fictitious statement and attributing it to me within quotation marks,” he wrote.

In ToI’s report, Tharoor was quoted as saying “Rahul Gandhi should not be declared the PM candidate” — something he never said, he wrote in the post.

“There were over 45 media persons present at @INCKerala headquarters last night & no one else has reported any such statement,” he explained.

“Asked about whether @RahulGandhi should be projected as the PM candidate, I pointed to the INDIA communique and said that no individuals were mentioned and the alliance’s focus was on the issues,” he clarified.

Tharoor went as far as challenging ToI to find any quote in its recordings that can prove he said Gandhi should not be declared candidate.

The politician’s post quickly went viral, garnering over 300,000 views and over a thousand reposts.

The newspaper quickly addressed Tharoor’s concern. In a thread, it clarified what the original quote and acknowledged the error.

What Tharoor said was: “….After the election, we can sit and decide on who should lead the front. Rahul Gandhi himself has said that the focus should be on elections and everything else can be decided later”.

Then the paper clearly said: “The TOI report had wrongly quoted Tharoor as saying, ‘Rahul Gandhi should not be declared the PM candidate’. We regret the error.”

The politician accepted the apology, appreciating the effort to correct the mistake. “Let’s move on,” he said.