A post on X by former minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on “ending his public service” and later deleting it led to confusion in the political fraternity on a day when NDA ministers were taking oath in Delhi.

Chandrasekhar, who lost to Shashi Tharoor from Thiruvananthapuram, on Sunday posted on X that he had ended “public service”, triggering speculations that he was unhappy at being denied a ministership.

An hour later, he followed it up with another post blaming a “new young intern” in his team for the first tweet that created the confusion. “A tweet — tweeted by a new young intern in my team — thanking everyone for their inspiration and support during these 18 years of public service as MP, has created some confusion among a section of people about my future political work. To avoid any further complexities on this, the tweet stands deleted,” Chandrasekhar said.

The deleted post read: “I certainly didn’t intend to end my 18 years of public service, as a candidate who lost an election but that’s how it’s turned out (sic).”