By IANS,
New Delhi : Author-politician and an avid tweeter, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor Sunday made a comeback to the union council of ministers more than two years afetr he exited in a controversy.
Tharoor, former UN undersecretary general, is the new minister of state for human resource development.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP has over 1.5 million followers on twitter and has 13,522 tweets to his credit. He was India’s candidate for the post of UN Secretary General in 2006, but narrowly lost out to Ban Ki-Moon.
“I am going to do my very best,” Tharoor told NDTV after the swearing in, and added, “I am privileged to be a part of the HRD ministry.”
Tharoor, 56, resigned as minister of state for external affairs April 18, 2010, following a controversy over his alleged interests in the IPL Kochi cricket team that was subsequently disbanded.
Speaking on the controversy, Tharoor said, “The IPL issues are far behind me now.”
He also said he would not leave tweeting.
In September 2009, Tharoor triggered a controversy with his “cattle class” tweet.
His tweet in September 2009 that he would travel “cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows” against the backdrop of an austerity drive in the government, kicked up a major row and Tharoor faced criticism.
He had apologised then, saying he meant no disrespect to economy travellers but “only to airlines for herding us in like cattle”.
Asked if he would continue tweeting, Tharoor said Sunday he would. “I am not a Facebook guy. I am more of a twitter guy and I will continue to tweet,” he told NDTV.
Shashi Tharoor married Sunanda Pushkar afer quitting office in 2010. She is his third wife.