Rumours that Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor is not getting along with Congress leadership have been in circulation, with fresh flare-ups of tensions coming every few days amid reports of him being too close to the BJP and praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Although these rumours have been refuted by Tharoor himself on multiple occasions, another instance came in the form of the a meeting of Congress Lok Sabha members called by Rahul Gandhi, which the former has skipped.
This marks three out of the three Congress meeting that Tharoor has not attended in three weeks.
Rahul Gandhi led the Congress' 99 MPs in discussions on Friday morning to review their performance so far and to refine their attacks on the BJP before Parliament’s winter session ends on December 19.
The reason for Tharoor not being present? His X timeline referred to private engagements, the wedding of his long time aide John Koshy in Kolkata and the birthday of his sister Smita Tharoor. Chandigarh MP Manish Tiwari was also absent from the meeting.
Tharoor skips Congress sessions
The two previous meetings Tharoor missed were in November. The first was on November 30, a strategy meeting chaired by Sonia Gandhi, whose leadership he and other leaders had questioned in August 2020. He later told reporters that he had not skipped the meeting and was on a flight from Kerala at the time. His office confirmed that he and his 90 year old mother were travelling to Delhi on a rescheduled flight which made attendance impossible. On that occasion another senior Congress leader, KC Venugopal, was also absent.
The second meeting was on November 18 and focused on the party’s opposition to the contentious Special Intensive Revision, the voter re verification exercise. That meeting was led by Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge. Tharoor cited ill health for his absence. A day earlier he had attended a private event at which the Prime Minister spoke, and an X post from the Kerala MP praising the speech triggered another round of controversy.
Rising tensions between Tharoor and Congress
Two Congress leaders, Supriya Shrinate and Sandeep Dikshit, dismissed the PM’s speech and criticised Tharoor’s response. Sandeep Dikshit even suggested that Tharoor leave the Congress and join the BJP, a move Tharoor has consistently rejected, if he found the PM so impressive.
Tharoor replied with a reminder of the need for practicality and expediency in India’s multi party federal system, where central and state governments are often run by rival groups with sharply differing views on development. He urged leaders to show a willingness to cooperate across ideologies in order to serve the people who elected them.
