Even as Congress criticized Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday after she lashed out a Karanataka Minister during a press meet on Friday, her ministry in a clarification blamed the state minister for the incident, terming his conduct as "unfortunate", besides accusing him of making personal remarks which were in "bad taste"
Sitharaman, a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, visited flood-ravaged Kodagu district in the state to review relief operations by the defence forces. She reacted angrily when Karnataka Minister Sa Ra Mahesh suggested to her to wind up the press interaction as a number of government officials were waiting for a meeting with her.
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"I am following a minute-to-minute programme, minister. I do not violate that. If officials are important, my parivaar (family) is also equally important. I follow the minister-in-charge. Central minister follows the minister in-charge here. Unbelievable," she told Mahesh, who was sitting next to her.
"You have a list of minute-to-minute programme for me to follow. If you did have a difference of opinion, you should have sorted it out before," Sitharaman said.
When an official told her that media was recording her comments, she said "Let it get recorded."
In a tweet, Congress leader and former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday criticised Sitharaman, alleging that she was "more interested in dominating our minister" which reflected BJP's "apathy" towards the state.
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The defence ministry issued a clarification on Saturday on the incident, questioning the state minister's conduct.
"On completion of the field visits, as per the programme, the Defence Minister was interacting with ex-servicemen who had been adversely affected by the floods, when the district in-charge minister objected and insisted that meeting with the officials be conducted first," it said.
"The defence minister clarified that welfare of ex-servicemen was an essential part of the ministry and the same was scheduled in the programme. However, the district minister insisted that the the defence minister immediately stop the interaction and proceed to the meeting with the officials," the ministry said.
It said Sitharaman immediately halted the meeting and proceeded to the venue of the meeting with the officials.
"The venue was already set up for the press conference and hurriedly the officials were summoned to sit among the mediapersons for the review. It was unprecedented to hold a meeting with the officials, with all the mediapersons present," it said.
The ministry said inspite of the district administration finalising her programme and the minister following the same in its "entirety", it is unfortunate that the Karnataka minister behaved the way he did.
"Subsequently, the personal remarks made against the defence minister were also in bad taste, which do not merit a response," the ministry said.
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It has also been noted that there has been gross misrepresentation with regard to the use of the term ‘parivar’ by the defence minister during the press conference, it said
"One of the four departments of the Ministry of Defence is the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare and in that context it was stated that all ex-servicemen are part of the MoD ‘parivar’. Any other inference is misconstrued and uncalled for," it said.
After the incident Mahesh had dubbed Sitharaman's comments as a reaction to the demand for funds from the Centre to Kodagu.
"She would have known the pain had she contested election by standing with the electorate, going to every house, meeting voters and asked their problems. She has been elected to Rajya Sabha from Karnataka," he had told a TV channel.
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The torrential rains that lashed the district last week have left a trail of destruction and claimed at least 17 lives. More than 5,000 people have been rendered homeless.
PTI
