Bengaluru, Aug 9: Famous Indian novelist and columnist Shobhaa De instigated a big controversy yesterday (August 8) after she tweeted, "Goal of Team India at the Olympics: Rio jao. Selfies lo. Khaali haat wapas aao. What a waste of money and opportunity."
This jibe of her at the Indian contingent who are sweating it out at Rio clearly did not go well with general mass as they lashed out on her on twitter.
Celebrities too joined the Shobhaa De bashing activity on the social media. Indian flag bearer at the Rio Olympics Abhinav Bindra who narrowly missed out on a second Olympics medal slammed De for her harsh remark.
Now, Shobhaa De has finally broken her silence on the controversy as she spoke to India Today regarding her tweet.
Speaking to India Today, the novelist said: "My tweet was not against the athletes. I support them and I will always back them. I blame the sporting authorities who cannot provide proper infrastructure, training facilities, food to the athletes."
De further added that she did not regret making those remarks as she felt about it strongly, but she also clarified that the jibe was not hurled at the athletes but the authorities.
Several celebrities and sportspersons took Twitter to reply back to De. Parupalli Kashyap, Abhinav Bindra, Jwala Gutta, Viren Rasquinha etc were among the eminent sports personalities who had tweeted in protest.
OneIndia News