Watch: Row over Sonia Gandhi’s ‘poor lady…was getting tired’ remark on President

"The poor lady, the President, was getting very tired by the end…she could hardly speak poor thing," Sonia Gandhi was heard saying in a video doing the rounds on social media.

New Delhi: In what began as an informal conversation with her children outside the Parliament House, in front of the media, on Friday, January 31, Sonia Gandhi’s statement on the President’s hour-long address to Parliament has now snowballed into a massive row with the Rashtrapati Bhavan issuing a statement against it.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi’s “poor thing and very tired” remarks about President Droupadi Murmu came after the latter’s hour-long address to Parliament, with the Rashtrapati Bhavan saying they were in “poor taste, unfortunate and unacceptable.”

Congress leaders’ comments on President Droupadi Murmu’s address to the Parliament are in poor taste, unfortunate and entirely avoidable, said the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

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In a statement, the President’s office said such comments hurt the dignity of the high office and therefore are “unacceptable”.

Soon after the President concluded her address to the joint sitting of both Houses on Friday, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were seen discussing the speech.

“The poor lady, the President, was getting very tired by the end…she could hardly speak poor thing,” Sonia Gandhi was heard saying in a video doing the rounds on social media.

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The President’s office said it believes that “it might be the case that these leaders were not acquainted with the idiom and discourse in Indian languages such as Hindi, and thus formed a wrong impression”.

In any case, such comments are in poor taste, unfortunate and entirely avoidable, the statement said.

While reacting to the media on the President’s address to the Parliament, some prominent leaders of the Congress party have made comments that clearly hurt the dignity of the high office, and therefore are unacceptable, it said.

“These leaders have said that the President was getting very tired by the end and she could hardly speak. Rashtrapati Bhavan would like to clarify that nothing could be farther from the truth. The President was not tired at any point. Indeed, she has believed that speaking up for the marginalised communities, for women and farmers, as she was doing during the course of her address, can never be tiring,” the statement said.

Priyanka Gandhi’s statement

Responding to her mother’s statement and her rescue Priyanka Gandhi said, “My mother is a 78-year-old lady, she simply said that the President must have been tired reading such a long speech, poor thing… I don’t think she… I think she has utmost respect for her (President). I think it’s very unfortunate that this kind of thing has twisted by the media. They are both respected people, they are older than us; it’s pretty clear that she means no disrespect.”

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