A remark by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor about an “encouraging progress towards normalcy” in the Valley has angered his party and prompted some Kashmiris to suggest his dark glasses might be preventing him from seeing the reality.

Tharoor, leading a parliamentary panel on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, had dark glasses on when he met lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha on Sunday.

In a post on X shortly afterwards, he made his “normalcy” comment that seemed aimed at needling his party, with which he has had multiple run-ins in the recent past over his praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions and policies.

“Srinagar! Had the honour of an excellent meeting with Lieutenant-Governor Shri @manojsinha_ at Lok Bhavan today,” Tharoor tweeted on Sunday.

“We discussed the situation in the state (sic) and the encouraging progress towards normalcy. When I arrived he was chatting to the President of the Kashmiri Writers’ Association and the Women’s Organisation — a positive outreach that I welcomed.

“Many challenges remain and much remains to be done, but I left the meeting feeling more positives than I have felt for a while.”

Tharoor’s remarks seemed to support the BJP’s “all is well” narrative on Kashmir, which the Congress routinely dismisses as false.

Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma hit back at Tharoor.

“The people of Kashmir too were expecting you to meet them to have a better understanding of the ground realities,” he said.

“At least (you) could’ve spared sometime to meet (your) own partymen fighting for statehood, snatched from us seven years ago.”

In Delhi, Congress leader Pawan Khera asked Tharoor to talk to everyone, saying he might change his opinion if he did so.

Following the backlash, Tharoor, who is visiting the Union Territory as chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs, said he had got an opportunity to meet Sinha but “have not had a chance to see other things and listen to other people’s voices”.

“I just want to make it very clear. This is not a visit to check conditions in the Kashmir valley,” he told reporters.

“The committee is here to study three issues — Indo-Pakistan (and) Sino-Indian relations and functioning of the passport offices and the passport seva kendras.

“These are the only three issues we are studying; we are not here to look into domestic issues. It is not our business; we are the external affairs committee.”

Tharoor, however, did not clarify how his remark on “normalcy” might be related to any of these three issues.

“I wish he would have removed the (dark) glasses,” journalist Peerzada Ashiq wrote.

Student leader Nasir Khuehami said it was deeply disappointing that a parliamentarian of Tharoor’s stature “chose not to engage in any meaningful dialogue with the people whose voices have been consistently sidelined”.

“Kashmir deserves more than symbolic visits and carefully curated interactions,” he said.

Tharoor had last week angered the Congress by claiming Modi had “forcefully made his point” about the US navy’s killing of Indian seafarers when he met President Donald Trump in France.