All right, just for the record, here's the austerity roundup since this and this  post.

First, the Indian Express reported  that in the age of austerity, "UPA Ministers want Spanish tiles, Italian porcelains... "a Minister of State has demanded a new toilet “on the back side of her seat” in keeping with Vaastu".

The austere "holy cows" of the Congress party did not think it was something worth responding to. The party spokesperson instead decided to join issue with Mr Tharoor's jocular remarks:

"We totally condemn it (Tharoor's comments). The statement is not in sync with our political culture. His remarks are not acceptable given the sensitivity of all Indians," AICC Spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan told reporters.

"Certainly the party does not endorse it. It is absolutely insensitive. We find it unacceptable and totally insensitive," she said when asked to comment on Tharoor's remarks on Twitter, a social networking website.

..."I am only commenting on his statement. It is absolutely insensible," she said when asked whether the party committed a mistake by giving him a ticket to contest Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, one Jacob Joseph, described on his Twitter page as "Director/OSD to MoS(ST), MEA" got into the act to post the above photograph of Mr Tharoor showing him "in cattle class a month ago" and retweeting many tweets favouring his boss and suitably dissing some of the humourless holy cows in the Congress. Here's a sampler:

• RT @murali_mohan: cattle class is a common term. There is even a wikipedia entry - http://bit.ly/PFJlN . we are with you @shashitharoor.3:23 PM Sep 17th from UberTwitter
• Shashi Tharoor (@shashitharoor) in cattle class a month ago. http://pic.gd/d398411:42 AM Sep 17th from TweetDeck 
• RT @rahultp : @shashitharoor: The Oxford English Dictionary lists cattle class as a term to describe economy seats on an aircraft.10:07 AM Sep 17th from TweetDeck   
• RT @rs2802: RT @tanya25m RT @bisprad twittergate is what u get when u have an educated guy in a cabinet of humorless twits10:04 AM Sep 17th from TweetDeck  
• RT @bvhk: @shashitharoor why don't you present a copy of The Great Indian Novel to Jayanthi Natarajan? Should result in great fun.10:03 AM Sep 17th from TweetDeck
• RT @crucifire: Hell Yeah! RT @hg6: @shashitharoor proving too good for Indian politics?10:03 AM Sep 17th from TweetDeck
• RT @abhishekrungta: english humor + outdated indian political spokesmen is a dangerous combo. avoid them! we indians are with you!9:55 AM Sep 17th from TweetDeck
•  RT @ShashiTharoor Don't let Jayanti Natarajan or any of the holy cows stop u 4m twittering. U called a spade a spade sans hypocrisy9:51 AM Sep 17th from TweetDeck    
• politics and the politicians are defined by you and me. Why not break the mold. Why can't there be humor in politics?10:55 PM Sep 16th from TweetDeck
• @nakulshenoy I'm not a member of the congress party10:35 PM Sep 16th from TweetDeck in reply to nakulshenoy

Sure enough, soon there was a helpful TOI report as well:

Sources close to Tharoor said the minister had taken almost 5 flights from Aug 9, travelling to Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi, and on all occasions he had booked himself in economy class.

"The austerity measures were announced mid-August during the party's working committee meeting but it came into effect later. However, Tharoor has been on these economy flights earlier. He began taking a Kingfisher flight from Mumbai to Kochi on Aug 9," said a close aide.

Earlier in the day, the Hindu reported that "Rahul Gandhi’s flying visit to TN cost over Rs.1 crore":

“As a politician, you have a duty to be austere,” Rahul Gandhi told reporters here last week during his tour of Tamil Nadu. But the travel bill the Congress general secretary toted up during his three-day visit down south ran to seven figures, not exactly a sum the word “austerity” conjures up.

The Congress decided to austerely keep quiet.

But all this talk of cattle and cows had perhaps made it inevitable that the "foot and mouth" epidemic would spread. And sure enough, the BJP joined the fray, and its spokesman, Mr Rajiv Pratap Rudy, added for good measure that Mr Tharoor had not only "blatantly insulted", but had also - mysteriously  - "tantalized", a large middle class: "ostensibly mocking their austere lifestyle."   He clearly wanted to leave no doubt in anyone's mind that his parsing abilities are no better than Ms Natarajan's:

Mr. Throor has termed economy class in airlines as a “Cattle Class” which outrightly smacks the insensitivity of the minister pounding the feelings and respect of a common traveller. This tantamounts to a deep injury to the self-respect and esteem of millions who travel economy class. The statement of Mr. Throor gives a display of unprecedented arrogance which in a way has been usually witnessed in the congress party.

After letting his OSD take care of the dirty work, Mr Tharoor, on his part, seemed to have decided to play the elder statesman and broke his silence on the subject with the following tweets:

• learned belatedly of fuss over my tweet replying to journo's query whether i wld travel to Kerala in "cattle class". His phrase which i rptd
• it's a silly expression but means no disrespect to economy travellers, only to airlines for herding us in like cattle. Many have misunderstd
• i'm told it sounds worse in Malayalam, esp out of context. To those hurt by the belief that my repeating the phrase showed contempt: sorry
• i now realize i shldnt assume people will appreciate humour. &u shouldn't give those who wld wilfully distort yr words an opportnty to do so 

Given the surreal preoccupations of our high-minded prinicpal political parties, it seemed perfectly reasonable to read a report during the day that the VHP and the Sangh Parivar have extended their full support to the hassled minister:

the VHP President said that the fact that Tharoor offered solidarity with our holy cows is  proof of his Hinduness. He also dared the press to show one statement in which a “Congresswala” has called our cows ‘Holy’. He also took strong umbrage at Jayanti Natrajan’s statement calling the cattle class reference as insulting. The Gau is given the status of a Mother in ancient Hindu scriptures, and so belonging to her ‘class’ should be a honour and not an insult, he further added.

Read more here