A minister in India's most populous and politically crucial state, Uttar Pradesh, has said bureaucrats can steal a little as long as they work hard - sparking a national outcry in a country whose ruling class has long been mired in corruption scandals.
"If you work hard, and put your heart and soul into it ... then you are allowed to steal some," Shivpal Singh Yadav told a gathering of local officials in comments caught on camera. "But don't be a bandit."
The comments on Thursday were caught by a local TV camera and then played on newscasts across the country. Yadav, a minister for public works who belongs to the state's ruling Samajwadi Party, quickly sought to control the damage, calling a news conference to explain that the comments had been taken out of context and that he had been discussing how to combat corruption.
"In that event, the media was not allowed in. I don't know how they sneaked in.
And if they had sneaked in, the whole discussion should have come out in the press, not just part of it," he said on Friday.
Uttar Pradesh, which is bigger than Brazil by population, was earlier governed by "Dalit Queen" Mayawati. She has been criticized for spending millions of rupees on statues of herself and buying diamond jewelry despite widespread malnutrition.
