Shashi Tharoor slams ‘zealots, trolls’, says 'have better things to do'

In clear signs of the deteriorating ties between Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and his party, the Thiruvananthapuram MP, who is currently heading the Indian outreach on Operation Sindoor, slammed Congress critics as “zealots, trolls”.

In a social media post before leaving Panama for Colombia for the onward journey of the multi-party delegation that he is heading, Tharoor said the critics and trolls could carry on doing what they liked. "I have better things to do," he said.

Tharoor 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."

Tharoor said his 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. Goodnight," he said.

Addressing the Indian diaspora in Panama, Tharoor on Wednesday said, “What has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised that they will have a price to pay. On that let there be no doubt. 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.”

To the chagrin of his party, the four-time Thiruvananthapuram MP said that this time India had gone beyond both the LoC and the IB and struck at the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan by hitting terror bases in nine places.

As a counter, Congress leader Pawan Khera posted a video featuring late PM Manmohan Singh's remarks on surgical strikes during the UPA. "Many surgical strikes were conducted under UPA," cc Shashi Tharoor", Khera said on X, after party leader Udit Raj asked Tharoor how “he could denigrate the golden history of his party by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed the LoC and the International border”.

“In 1965 the Indian Army entered Pakistan at multiple points, which completely surprised the Pakistanis in the Lahore sector. In 1971, India tore Pakistan in two pieces and during the UPA government several surgical strikes were unleashed but drum-beating was not done for political encashment,” Raj said.