PTR becomes a part time troll: After Jaggi and The Hindu’s Malini, engages in spat with former Infosys director

P.T.R. Palanivel Thiagarajan, the Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu who had earlier called Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev a ‘publicity hound’ and a ‘charlatan’ has now gone an abusive rant against former Infosys director and Padmashree awardee T.V. Mohandas Pai.

Mohandas Pai had shared a video on his Twitter timeline on May 21 where he had called Palanivel Thiagarajan as a ‘loose mouth’, ‘arrogant’, ‘self-centred’, ‘abusive’ and ‘egoistic’ for his comments on Jaggi Vasudev.

“Can he shut up and do his job?” Pai wrote on in his tweet.

Following this, Palanivel Thiagarajan responded to the tweet calling Mohandas Pai a ‘capitation-thieving’, ‘genetically-bigoted’, ‘biggest-global-beef-merchant’ and a ‘hypocrite’. He had also shared pictures of audit reports to substantiate his claims of alleged environmental violations of Isha Foundation.

To this, Mohandas Pai retorted back at Palanivel Thiagarajan saying that he had a bigoted mind was devoid of dignity.

The spat came to an end with Palanivel Thiagarajan blocking Mohandas Pai.

Palanivel Thiagarajan has been in the news for the last few days for his comments on Jaggi Vasudev over the latter’s clarion call for freeing temples from state control.

In his interview to The Hindu which was published on May 14, Palanivel Thiagarajan dismissed the call for relieving Hindu temples from government control and went on to make defamatory statements on Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.

““Random people make random noise. These are the people who want to break the goodwill of society,” he told The Hindu.

“In the case of Jaggi, he is a publicity hound and charlatan who is trying to find another angle to make more money.” he further added. He had also called Jaggi Vasudev a ‘commercial operator’ pretending to use god and religion to get help.

In response to this, volunteers of the Isha Foundation had written an open letter to Palanivel Thiagarajan saying that they were appalled at the personal attack made by a person holding such high office. The letter further stated that Isha Foundation has worked with various elected governments from across the political spectrum and will continue to do so for the welfare of the people of Tamil Nadu.

The Hindu Publishing Group’s Chairperson Malini Parthasarathy had shared this response which The Hindu had carried in the form of an article. However, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan resorted to shooting the messenger saying that Malini Parthasarathy needs ‘counselling’ and not destroy The Hindu’s brand.

 

Click here to subscribe to The Commune on Telegram and get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.