 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Debunking reports that he had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had ‘pulled him up’ for his utterances, Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Tuesday said no such meeting had taken place nor had he broken down before him.
"No," he told media persons who had asked him whether he had become emotional during a meeting on Tuesday with Modi, who television channels earlier had reported that he had pulled him up for his racist remarks against Congress President Sonia Gandhi last month.
"The meeting had not taken place. Who told you I had met him?" Singh said when asked about his reported meeting with the prime minister. Singh was on Monday forced to express regret in the Lok Sabha for his remarks against Sonia Gandhi after Congress members staged vociferous protests on the issue.
"I never meant to offend anyone. But if my comments hurt anyone's sentiments, I regret it," Singh said when Speaker Sumitra Mahajan asked him to respond after the House saw loud protests by Congress members, who termed his remarks as an insult to womanhood and sought his resignation.
Singh, minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises, was under fire for his racist barb at Gandhi asking whether Congress would have accepted her leadership had she not been white-skinned.
"Had (former prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi married a Nigerian woman and if she was not a white-skinned woman, would the Congress have then accepted her (Sonia's) leadership?" he had said recently.
Even when the controversy broke out earlier this month, Singh maintained that it was an 'off the record' conversation with journalists but expressed regrets if it had caused hurt to Gandhi.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu sought to play down the issue saying ‘the issue is closed’.