New Delhi: During the poll season, politicians are mostly busy hurling abuses and insults at each other. But here's a story of rare bonhomie. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman set politics aside when she made an impromptu visit to Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor who was in hospital in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday after he was injured during a religious ritual at a temple. Sitharaman had not even shared the plan with her party, she said.
"I got to know that he (Shashi Tharoor) injured himself while performing some ritual. So I thought I should go and wish him well. I hadn't informed anybody, not even in my party circle. On my way back to the airport, I thought I should go to the hospital," Sitharaman said.
Tharoor also took to Twitter to post a picture showing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader shaking hands with him in his hospital room. He wrote, "Civility is a rare virtue in politics."
The Defence Minister was in Kerala campaigning for her own party. Kerala will vote in a single phase on April 23 in the seven-phase General Elections. Results will be out on May 23.
Tharoor sustained injuries during a ritual called "thulabharam" on Vishu, in which a person is weighed against flowers, grains, fruits and other things on a scale in temples and whatever quantity of items equals the weight of the person is offered as a donation.
Tharoor fell off while he was sitting on one of the pans of the weighing scale as the hook came off and the iron panel fell on his head.
After he was discharged from the hospital, Tharoor was back on the campaign trail and even joined Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his campaign in the state capital on Wednesday.