After facing backlash over a post describing his visit to landslide-hit Keraka's Wayanad as "memorable", Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday clarified his use of the term was meant to signify it is "unforgettable." The Thiruvananthapuram MP recently visited Wayanad to assess the devastation caused by recent landslides, which have left over 360 dead and around 200 others missing.
"For all the trolls: definition of 'memorable': Something that is memorable is worth remembering or likely to be remembered, because it is special or unforgettable. That's all I meant," Tharoor said in a post on X.
The senior congress leader landed in hot waters after he shared a video of relief work in landslide-hit Wayanad with the caption, "Some memories of a memorable day in Wayanad". The video showed Tharoor unloading relief materials from a truck, and visiting relief camps and the landslide-hit locations.
However, the post soon invited severe online backlash from various sections of society, with BJP leader Amit Malviya slamming the Congress leader for calling "deaths and disaster are memorable".
"Deaths and disaster are memorable for Shashi Tharoor," he wrote while resharing Tharoor's tweet.
Other social media users also criticised Tharoor's use of vocabulary for describing a trip to disaster-stricken area, with some netizens calling him an "elite MP".
However, in an earlier post, Tharoor said his visit to devastated areas in Wayanad was "emotionally searing".
"Picked my way through the rubble to view the destruction in the villages of Chooralmala, Mundakkai and Puncharimattam. Ground Zero was emotionally devastating - just imagining what it must have been like at 2 AM and 4 AM when families sleeping peacefully would have felt a fusillade of rocks and mud crashing into them, crushing their homes and their dreams," he wrote.
Three massive landslides struck Wayanad's Meppadi, Mundakkai and Chooralmala areas on July 30, wiping out entire villages.