After Tharoor's 'zealots' jibe, Surjewala says he's 'part of family'

In signs of plummeting ties between Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and his party, the former junior minister for external affairs currently heading the Indian outreach on Operation Sindoor, slammed his Congress critics as "zealots and trolls."

Advertisement

In a social media post before leaving Panama for Colombia for an onward journey of the multi-party delegation which he is heading, Tharoor said trolls could do what they liked but he had better things to do.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP posted, "After a long and successful day in Panama, I have to wind up at midnight with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don’t really have time for this — but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC: in the past -- I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars."

Didn't talk about wars

For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC in the past... I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars.

-- Shashi Tharoor, Congress

 

Only corrected record

The Congress only corrected the record by pointing out that the surgical strike on Pakistan and also at other places on the den of terrorists were regularly executed during the Congress-led UPA government.

 -- Randeep Surjewala, Congress

The former Under-Secretary-General of the UN, Tharoor said his remarks were preceded by a reference to several attacks that had 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. Goodnight," he said even as his colleagues continued to question him.

AICC media chief Pawan Khera today posted a screenshot of Tharoor's 2018 book, "The Paradoxical Prime Minister" in which he criticises the PM for "shameless exploitation of the 2016 surgical strikes along the LoC." "I agree with Dr Shashi Tharoor who wrote about surgical strikes in his book in 2018," Khera said after Congress leader Udit Raj accused the Thiruvananthapuram MP of "trying to destroy the Congress name."

"Shashi Tharoor says that before PM Modi's leadership, we never crossed LoC or any international border with Pakistan. It is a big lie and a big conspiracy to destroy the history of the Congress which needs to be replied to," Udit Raj said, asking Tharoor to do his duty rather than criticise the Congress.

As the Tharoor-Congress chasm played out in the open, it was left to Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala to calm the tempers a little.

Surjewala said Tharoor was "very much part of the Congress family but what he said about the surgical strike was factually incorrect."

"The Congress only corrected the record by pointing out that the surgical strike on Pakistan and also at other places on the den of terrorists were regularly executed during Congress-led UPA government to give a befitting reply to terrorists by our armed forces and the then Congress government," said Surjewala.

Speaking with the diaspora in Panama yesterday, Tharoor had said, "What has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay. When, for the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base, the Uri strike in September 2016. That was something we had not done before...Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the LoC. In Uri we did, and then came the Pulwama attack in 2019. This time we crossed not only the LoC but also the international border."

These remarks were sharply rebutted by Udit Raj who asked how Tharoor could denigrate the golden history of his own party.