Ticked off, Krishna and Tharoor move out of luxury hotels
External affairs minister S M Krishna and his minister of state Shashi Tharoor moved out of the five-star hotels they were staying in after they were ticked off by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee for their extravagance when the government was advocating austerity. The two ministers said they were staying at suites in luxury hotels as they did not find official accommodation to their satisfaction.
Mukherjee called his two colleagues on September 8 to ask them to move out. "I have requested both the ministers to vacate the hotel rooms and go to their respective Bhavans where they have come from, and from where they have been elected," Mukherjee said.
Though both ministers said they had paid the hotel bills out of their pockets, the controversy embarrassed the government. According to sources close to Krishna, the minister has moved to a guest room in the Foreign Service Institute until his official residence is ready for occupation. Tharoor has refused to stay at Kerala House but may have moved to the Navy’s Kota House on Shahjahan Road.
Tharoor did not seem too apologetic as he tweeted that he had not spent government money. Also, he apparently decided he would not move to Kerala House as it lacked privacy and a gym.
The haste with which they had to vacate their hotels may have had something to do with the “advice” from the Congress leadership. Tharoor, sources said, had checked out of the hotel on September 1, when he traveled to Kerala. He arrived in town on the morning of September 8.
Both ministers clarified they had not used government money but their personal finances. Krishna has been staying at ITC’s Maurya Sheraton while Tharoor has been at the Taj Mahal Hotel on Mansingh Road.
Sources in the MEA, keen to save their ministers’ face, said the tariff at Maurya Sheraton was only a few thousand rupees, and not lakhs, as had been speculated. Krishna told reporters, “I have made some private arrangements. I will continue to make the same kind of private arrangements till I get my house fit enough to be occupied.”
Tharoor tweeted on the social networking site Twitter, “I would be ashamed if I was spending the people’s money. But I’m not, I’m spending my own savings.” Asked why he couldn’t stay in Kerala House, Tharoor said, “I need two things daily that Kerala House doesn’t offer - a gym and some privacy. But I visit pretty often and meet people there.”
After Krishna became minister, he was given another bungalow on Thyagaraja Marg, which is also under renovation. Tharoor has been given a house in Lodhi Estate, but that is being “done up”, MEA sources said.
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