Angry wife outs Indian minister’s ‘affair’ on Twitter

NEW DELHI: The furious wife of the Indian government’s top-tweeting minister admitted Thursday she had hacked his account to send out messages exposing an alleged affair he was having with a Pakistani journalist.

The scandal was splashed on the front pages of several newspapers after a curious series of messages appeared on the Twitter account of the suave thrice-married human resources minister Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday evening.

They showed private exchanges apparently between 57-year-old Tharoor and Pakistani journalist Mehr Tarar, 45, in which she professed her love for him and he said his wife had discovered his adultery. Sunanda Tharoor, a formerly Dubai-based entrepreneur whom the minister married in 2010, confessed to sending the messages and also dragged up a corruption scandal that nearly wrecked her husband´s career.

"That woman pursued and pursued him... men are stupid anyway... for all you know she is a Pakistani agent. Where´s love, where´s loyalty in this world?... I am so distraught," she was quoted as saying in the Indian Express.

Tharoor (@shashitharoor) posted a message late Wednesday to his two million followers claiming his account had been "hacked" while Tarar (@mehrtarar) denied having an affair with him in a series of messages.

"Our accounts have not been hacked and I have been sending out these tweets," Sunanda told the Economic Times, while also referring to a cricket scandal in 2010 shortly after her husband entered politics.

The French-speaking former UN diplomat had to resign from his first ministerial post in 2010 after revelations that then-girlfriend Sunanda had been given a free stake in a new Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket team.

Opposition parties said the stake, reportedly worth up to 15 million dollars, was for Tharoor´s behind-the-scenes services in putting together a consortium that bought the Kochi franchise, based in his home state of Kerala.

"I took upon myself the crimes of this man during IPL. I will not allow this to be done to me," Sunanda told the Economic Times.

Tharoor, a father of two adult sons from his first marriage, resigned saying that his conscience was clear, telling parliament he had done "nothing improper or unethical let alone illegal".

A source in his parliamentary office in New Delhi said he was unwell and not working.