Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri says George Soros's name was included in the 2009 list of guests as he "was among the benefactors of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and the Minister of State (Tharoor) was keen to meet him".
"Since there is so much unhealthy curiosity about this tweet, I knew Mr Soros well in my UN days as an upstanding international-minded resident of New York.
"He was a friend in the social sense: I have never received or solicited a penny from him or any of his foundations for myself or any institution or cause I supported," Shashi Tharoor wrote last Sunday.
He had referred to his own 2009 tweet wherein he had said -- "Met my old friend Soros .....He is far more than an investor : a concerned world citizen". (tweet of May 26th, 2009 meet)
Former Minister of State for External Affairs Tharoor's remarks come at a time the BJP has been accusing top Congress leaders of colluding with George Soros to 'destabilise India'.
Of course, the Congress has refuted the charge as baseless.
Tharoor clarified the two had very limited interactions, and that he had only met Soros once since the tweet — at a dinner hosted by Hardeep Singh Puri, then India’s Ambassador to the United Nations and now a BJP Minister.
"Amb Puri had invited a number of prominent Americans for a dinner discussion with me (and that was entirely appropriate). I have not been in touch with Mr Soros since," he said.
Now BJP leader and Union Minister Puri has joined the issue stating -
that Tharoor, who was then the Minister of State for External Affairs, met Soros in May 2009 and even tweeted about it.
He also clarified that it was the only time he had met Soros, who has been in the eye of a storm in India after the BJP alleged a nexus between the US hedge fund tycoon and Sonia Gandhi.
"My friend Dr Shashi Tharoor ji, who was a student at St Stephen's College in DU when I was a member of the teaching faculty, had arrived in New York as MoS External Affairs shortly after I was posted as India's Ambassador and Permanent Representative at UN.
I hosted him and his companion at a briefing breakfast on October 11, 2009, and then for dinner on the evening of October 12, 2009," Puri said.
"Since I was just a few months old in the city then, but Dr Tharoor had spent considerable time in New York, I did not choose the list of invitees for the dinner. It was given to me by Minister Tharoor," he said.
"Apart from members of the diplomatic fraternity, I noticed the name of Soros in the list and I clearly remember bringing it up with the then Minister, who had also met him in May 2009 and even tweeted about it. That is the only time in my life when I met Soros," the Union Minister said.
Puri said it was clear that Soros's name was included in the list as he "was among the benefactors of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and the Minister of State (Tharoor) was keen to meet him".
Tharoor has again countered and wrote:
"Our recollections differ, dear Hardeep. There were several guests present at your well-attended dinner whom i had never met before. But I am not objecting; it is entirely appropriate that on such an occasion the Indian Ambassador should have a guest-list spanning a wide cross-section of influential international and local opinion.
I see no reason for either of us to disavow our contacts with anyone at the earlier stages of our lives in New York or Geneva".
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