Days after facing backlash for referring to President Droupadi Murmu as ‘Rashtrapatni’, Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, calling on Union Minister Smriti Irani to issue an “unconditional apology” for yelling the name ‘Droupadi Murmu’ without using the prefix ‘President.’
“I may like to point out that how Irani was taking the name of Madam President in the House was not proper and in consonance with the status and position of the President. She was yelling ‘Droupadi Murmu’ repeatedly without prefixing President or Madam or Smt. before the President’s name. This clearly amounts to degrading the stature of the office of the President. Therefore. I demand that Irani may tender an unconditional apology to the President for her disrespectful remarks and for lowering the dignity and stature of the President’s office,” Chowdhury said in a letter.
Chowdhury had triggered massive outrage by the BJP after his ‘Rashtrapatni’ remark, which the Congress leader said was a “slip of tongue as not very good at Hindi”. However, the BJP had demanded an apology from him along with Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi.
In a letter to Lok Sabha Speaker, the Congress MP said, “I wish to reiterate that it was because of a slip of the tongue that the name of our President Madam was dragged into the unnecessary and unwarranted controversy. This inadvertent mistake happened because I am not very good at Hindi. I have regretted my mistake and have apologised to the President.”