Soon after the Rio Olympics organising committee threatened to cancel Sports Minister Vijay Goel's accreditation, Twitter went abuzz about the incident with Twitterati slamming the Minister for being "aggressive and rude" and pushing in non-accredited persons into restricted venues.
Goel, who is currently in Rio de Janeiro to cheer the Indian contingent, allegedly entered accredited areas accompanied by non-accredited persons. The Rio Olympic Organising Committee on Thursday wrote to India's Chef de Mission Rakesh Gupta and informed him about this misconduct.
The Continental Manager for the Rio 2016 Organising Committee, Sarah Peterson, in the letter said that despite earlier warnings, the action was repeated on Thursday, adding that this "type of behaviour is not acceptable and the minister's accreditation could be cancelled".
Twitterati did not take kindly to the incident and criticism poured in from all over the country blasting the Sports Minister, with some of the comments being extremely severe.
"#VijayGoel has damaged image of India at international level by his rude and aggressive behaviour," said a Twitter user on Friday.
"Today #VijayGoel, previously some othr minister/Bureaucrat such stupid, idiocy must b stopped, India doesn't need these kind of embarrassment."
"Lol! and if he does it again they'll take away his accreditation so no more selfies for him #VijayGoel," another unimpressed Twitter user said.
"Normally our politicians behave nicely as soon as they board on international flight. This #VijayGoel must be drunk??" pondered another user.
Goel, however, has denied his involvement in any such improper behaviour and he wrote on Twitter on Thursday that there seems to be some misunderstanding.
"To my knowledge, we have been following all rules & regulations. We are committed to the spirit of Olympics & back our Indian players," Goel wrote.
"There seems to be some misunderstanding as we have followed all protocols as advised by the organisers."
Gupta also said that "unfortunately, a non-issue is being made an issue without reason".
--IANS
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