Indian Foreign Minister S M Krishna and his Junior Shashi Tharoor had to quit five star hotels Maurya Sheraton and Tajmahal in New Delhi respectively over a controversy on their costly living. The Two Indian ministers had spent one lakh Indian rupees each daily for three months for their accommodation in the prestigious Indian hotels where US President Clinton and George W Bush had once stayed.

Earlier Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee publicly urged Krishna and Shashi Tharoor to vacate their luxurious accommodations in the hotels as it was contrary to their election pledge to go austere. They were politely requested to live in Kerala House in Delhi. They were both elected from Kerala and Karnataka states respectively to Indian Parliament. The two ministers had to move to new accommodations at the request of Pranab Mukherjee following a media report that they were living in five star hotels. But the reports could not be confirmed as the officers attached to the two ministers remained tightlipped.

Earlier, Krishna said, he had been staying in the Maurya Sheraton under his own arrangement. He said, he will continue to make private arrangement for his stay until government accommodation for him is readied and it was made fit enough to be occupied. Both the ministers did not disclose details of the private accommodation they had made. Shashi Tharoor who has come from Kerala, said he had declined to stay in Kerala House as he needs two things - a gym and some privacy which the Kerala House did not have.

Both the ministers claimed that they were paying for the hotel accommodations from their own pockets. Reports had it Krishna had moved to Foreign Service Institute Guest House while Tharoor had shifted to the Indian Navy Guest House. The Indian External Ministry has a guest block in the Hyderabad House, once known as the Nizam's palace in New Delhi. The state-level bilateral talks and international conferences of repute are held in the Hyderabad House. The recently held bilateral talks at the foreign minister level between India and Bangladesh were held in the Hyderabad House, where Krishna and Tharoor deemed to be the key players.

Pranab Mukherjee cracked the whip on his Cabinet colleagues following widespread media criticism on their grand living. A newspaper in Delhi pointed out how can the two ministers spend lakhs of rupees per day to live in five star hotels when they earn just thousands in a month. The Prime Minister should probe about their three-month stay in five star hotels. It was speculated who were they - the government or some private functionaries- that are financing their stay in the hotels. The questions were raised how a minister earning only thousands per month can spend lakhs of rupees per day from their pockets for more than three long months.

What prompted Pranab to ask Krishna and Tharoor to quit their five-star living accommodation. Another media report said, how silly a minister can be that he lives in a five star hotel only because he needs a gym and privacy daily. Another news channel claims that such thing is happening in India when farmers in Uttar Pradesh are selling their wives to live another day.

-New Nation