NEW DELHI: Madhya Pradesh Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, who was earlier criticised for allegedly making an insensitive statement against the late journalist Akshay Singh, has backtracked and claimed that a joke that he had cracked was later taken out of context.
“My statement has been twisted. I was joking with some other journalist, it was not about the late Akshay Singh. I strongly condemn this,” Vijayvargiya told ANI.
Vijayvargiya had earlier drawn sharp censure when he appeared to comment on Akshay Singh’s death by saying, “Is a journalist bigger than me?”, reportedly in the presence of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Akshay Singh, a journalist working for a leading Delhi-based news channel, on Saturday suddenly took ill and died after having interviewed parents of a girl who had been found dead near railway tracks, after her name figured in the Vyapam scam.
The journalist was rushed to the civil hospital and later to a private hospital, but doctors failed to revive him. From there he was taken to another hospital in nearby Dahod in Gujarat, where he was declared brought dead.