Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday made it clear that he would neither accept an award named after V.D. Savarkar nor attend the ceremony announcing it.

His stance came even as senior Congress leader K. Muraleedharan urged party members to stay away from honours associated with the Hindutva ideologue, whom he accused of having “bowed before the British.”

Tharoor said he would not receive the “Veer Savarkar Award” and would skip the event entirely, pointing to the absence of details about the award and the organisation behind it.

He added that “it was irresponsible on the part of the organisers to announce my name without my having agreed to receive it.”

Earlier, Muraleedharan told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram that no Congress member, including Tharoor, should accept such an award. He said he did not believe Tharoor would receive it, as doing so would “insult and embarrass the Congress party.”

In Delhi, Tharoor told reporters that he had learned about the award only a day earlier and had no plans to attend. “I heard about it yesterday only. I am not going. I am not here,” he said.

He later posted on X: “In the absence of clarifications about the nature of the award, the organisation presenting it or any other contextual details, the question of my attending the event today or accepting the award does not arise.”

Tharoor said he first came across news of his selection while in Kerala to vote in the local body polls on Tuesday. He maintained that he had “neither aware of, nor had accepted, such an award.”

He added, “Despite that, today in Delhi, some media outlets continue to ask the same question. Therefore, I am issuing this statement to clarify the matter unequivocally.”

Following his statement, Aji Krishnan, secretary of the Highrange Rural Development Society (HRDS) India, which instituted the award, said the MP had been informed well in advance.

Krishnan told a TV channel that HRDS representatives and the jury chair had visited Tharoor at his residence to invite him. According to him, Tharoor requested a list of other awardees.

“We gave him the list. He has not yet informed us that he will not come for the event. Perhaps he is scared as the Congress has made it an issue,” he claimed. Kerala law minister P. Rajeev said the decision rested with Tharoor.

Tharoor had been named among the first recipients of the Veer Savarkar International Impact Award 2025, instituted by HRDS India and scheduled to be presented in New Delhi on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, he had said, “I am not aware of anything related to the award. Let me find out what it is.”