Mumbai: Days after his wife Amruta Fadnavis courted a controversy by clicking a selfie on the edge of a Mumbai-Goa cruise ship here, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Tuesday said she is an independent individual who acts as per her "intellect".
Speaking at Aaj Tak Manthan, Fadnavis said, "My wife is an independent individual and acts according to her intellect. She has an ideology of her own. Have I bought her?"
He said while Amruta was safely clicking the selfie at a safe spot, some "narrow-minded" individuals chose to troll her for the act. "Some people click photos while hiding while others do it openly. Maharashtra has not seen young CMs and their wives.
What can be done in the age of 38-40 can't be done at 56 years of age," he quipped.
A controversy erupted after a video of Amruta clicking selfie while sitting on the edge of the cruise ship went viral.
She was attending the inauguration of domestic cruise liner Angriya here on October 20. The video shows security personnel trying to persuade her to return to a safer spot.
Fadnavis said the video was clicked from an angle which made it seem like Amruta had ignored safety warnings.
"Amruta had sought the permission of the ship's captain before clicking the photo. I, (union minister) Nitin Gadkari and the captain were all there at that time and there was a deck below her. So she was completely safe," he said.
Interestingly, Amruta had Monday said she was ready to apologise over the incident, but insisted that the spot where she was sitting was safe.