Media distorted my words: Tharoor

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has accused the media of distorting his words vis-a-vis the Ram temple issue and stressed that whatever he said was his personal opinion and not his partys.

"I condemn the malicious distortion of my words by some media in the service of political masters. I had said, 'Most Hindus would want a temple at what they believe to be Ram's birthplace. But no good Hindu would want it to be built by destroying another's place of worship'," Tharoor said in a tweet on Monday.

"I was asked for my personal opinion at a literary festival and gave it as such. I am not a spokesperson for my party and did not claim to be speaking for it," he added.

Reacting to Tharoor's earlier purported remarks, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that he was "astonished" to know that Shashi Tharoor believes that "true Hindus don't want a Ram temple in Ayodhya".

"This could be Tharoor's or Rahul Gandhi's views but not of the common people. This shows how cut off they are from reality," Javadekar said.

--IANS

mak/mr