Shashi Tharoor on Thursday hit back at his Congress critics who have questioned his praise of the Narendra Modi government’s response to terrorism, further testing the ties with his party amid a gleeful BJP’s efforts to wade in and muddy the waters.
In a post on X, Tharoor castigated as “zealots” the Congress leaders who have challenged the historical accuracy of what they took to be his claim that the Indian forces had before Modi never crossed the Line of Control.
“…For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC: in the past,” the Congress MP and former international diplomat wrote.
“1. I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about
previous wars; &
“2. My remarks were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone, during which previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB. But as usual, critics and trolls are welcome to distort my views and words as they see fit. I genuinely have better things to do.”
Earlier, speaking in Panama City, Tharoor had suggested that India had “for the first time” breached the LoC for surgical strikes on terror launch pads in September 2016 — something it hadn’t done “even during the Kargil War”.
Congress media chief Pawan Khera reacted to Tharoor’s latest post by pulling out a passage from the Thiruvananthapuram MP’s 2018 book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister, where the author chides the Modi government for its tom-tomming of the 2016 surgical strikes.
“I agree with that Dr @ShashiTharoor…,” Khera added.
Tharoor had in the book written: “The shameless exploitation of the 2016 ‘surgical strikes’ along the Line of Control with Pakistan and of a military raid in hot pursuit of rebels in Myanmar, as a party election tool — something the Congress had never done despite having authorised several such strikes earlier — marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require both discretion and non-partisanship.”
The Congress and BJP ecosystems have been running down and building up Tharoor, respectively, ever since the Modi government unilaterally picked him to lead an all-party delegation to the Americas to mobilise opinion against Pakistan in connection Pahalgam and Operation Sindoor.
If Tharoor’s acceptance of the assignment annoyed the Congress, his comments overseas as part of the diplomatic mission have deepened its displeasure. Tharoor remains in the Congress but the party, having given him a long rope so far, has been increasingly differing with him in public.
The BJP has gleefully seized its chance to use Tharoor to rile the Congress some more, with Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju questioning the party’s patriotism.
“Congress ka haath kiske saath? Kya Congress party mein desh ke liye bolna mana hai (The Congress is with whom? Is speaking for the country not allowed in the Congress?),” Rijiju posted on X.
He attached video clips of Tharoor’s praise of Modi and the attack on him from the Congress.
In the clip Rijiju attached, Tharoor is heard saying: “Our Prime Minister made it clear, Operation Sindoor was necessary because terrorists came and wiped the ‘sindoor’ off the foreheads of 26 women… but India decided that the vermilion colour of the ‘sindoor’ will also match the colour of the blood of the killers, the perpetrators of the attack.”
Rijiju followed this up with another post: “What does the Congress party want & how much they really care for the country? Should the Indian MPs go to foreign nation and speak against India and its Prime Minister? There’s limit to political desperation!”
The BJP’s newfound admiration for Tharoor marks a role reversal from the time in 2012 when Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, mocked him for having a “50-crore-rupee-girlfriend”.
“Wah kya girlfriend hai. Apne kabhi dekha hai 50 crore ka girlfriend (What a girlfriend! Have you ever seen a ₹50-crore girlfriend)?” Modi had told a rally.
He was alluding to accusations that Tharoor had negotiated a “sweat equity” for Sunanda Pushkar for the then Kochi IPL team.
Tharoor later married Pushkar who, in 2014, was found dead in a luxury hotel in Delhi under mysterious circumstances. In 2021, a special court discharged Tharoor of all charges citing a lackof evidence.
BJP parliamentarian turned Congress politician Udit Raj had been the first from the Opposition party to attack Tharoor over his recent comments in Panama City.
“What has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay; on that, let there be no doubt,” Tharoor had said.
“When, for the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base, a launch pad — the Uri strike in September 2015 (actually 2016) — that was already something we had not done before.
“Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the Line of Control; in Uri, we did, and then came the attack in Pulwama in January 2019.
“This time, we crossed not only the Line of Control but also the international border, and we struck the terrorist headquarters in Balakot. This time, we have gone beyond both of those.
“We have not only gone beyond the Line of Control and the international border. We have struck at the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan by hitting terror bases, training centres, terror headquarters in nine places.”
Udit reacted by calling Tharoor a “super spokesman of the BJP”.