Tharoor bowled over by Manushi's 'uncommonly gracious' reply to his tweet

NEW DELHI: After drawing flak over his ‘Chillar’ tweet, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday said that he was touched by Miss World pageant 2017 winner Manushi Chhillar's reply to his post on the social networking site.

Tharoor said the beauty queen was being 'uncommonly gracious' in her tweet reply to his post.

She tweeted: “A girl who has just won the World isn’t going to be upset over a tongue-in-cheek remark. ‘Chillar’ talk is just small change - let’s not forget the ‘chill’ within Chhillar @ShashiTharoor (sic).”

After her victory at the pageant on Saturday, Tharoor had tweeted, "What a mistake to demonetise our currency! BJP should have realised that Indian cash dominates the globe: look, even our Chhillar has become Miss World!"

However, it backfired on Tharoor, when Twitteratis slammed him for comparing Manushi's surname to 'loose change'.

The Congress leader promptly issued an apology in another tweet, saying, "Guess the pun IS the lowest form of humour, & the bilingual pun lower still!

“Apologies to the many who seem to have been righteously offended by a light-hearted tweet today. Certainly no offence was meant to a bright young girl whose answer i've separately praised. Please: Chill!."

Manushi Chhillar won the beauty crown for India after a gap of 16 years.