Shashi Tharoor isn't about to clear out his diary of forthcoming public appearances - not just yet.
A day after a host of allegations were raised by Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV against the former Union minister and diplomat, news releases about events expected to host Tharoor, are only gaining circulation.
Tharoor is expected to host a book release, of Aliyah by Sethu, translated from Malayalam by Catherine Thankamma, at the India International Centre, New Delhi, on Thursday, May 11.
Earlier on Tuesday, Tharoor rubbished the questions raised against him, with regard to his actions after his wife Sunanda Pushkar’s death in 2014, as “misrepresentations and outright lies”.
On Monday, the newly launched TV channel Republic aired 19 audio tapes in a stated exposé of the Congress parliamentarian’s actions, and his wife's mysterious death.
In a Facebook post, Tharoor called the accusations an “exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies”, and called the anchor “an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalist”.
Tharoor went on to lament that “someone would exploit a human tragedy for personal gain and TRPs”, and challenged Goswami “to prove his false claims in a court of law”.
The case in question was of Tharoor's wide, Sunanda Pushkar, who was found dead in a 5-star hotel suite in Delhi, on January 17, 2014.
Police investigation and forensic reports since have shed little light on the cause of her death. The tapes aired by Republic suggest that Tharoor tampered with and concealed evidence.
At the same time, Tharoor's social networking posts faced a huge backlash, with a series of memes and jokes doing the rounds over the seemingly verbose statements.
"Shashi Tharoor - You neanderthal despicable cacopygian, elevate your posterior," says one tweet, in response to Tharoor's attack against Goswami.
Tharoor's tweets made Twitterati run for a dictionary, joked one headline.
"We all know that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has a great ability to weave words together and turn them into magic but not everyone can understand his word bombs," said the report.
Tharoor, meanwhile, has been steadfast in maintaining that he has nothing to hide over the case.