Tharoor echoes PM Modi on Pak strikes; Cong fumes, calls him BJP’s voice

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday drew the ire of his party for echoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the history of counter-terror strikes against Pakistan and Operation Sindoor.

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“Tharoor should be declared a super spokesperson of the BJP, even foreign minister before he returns to India,” suggested Congress leader Udit Raj, whose remarks AICC media chief Pawan Khera promptly endorsed.

At the heart of the consternation are Tharoor’s remarks that the Indian military crossed the LoC and International Border for the first time in 2016 and 2019 to avenge the Uri and Pulwama terror attacks, respectively. These remarks align with the PM’s line on counter-terrorism, but contradict the Congress’ publicly stated position that surgical strikes also occurred under the UPA, but were not publicised.

In Panama, where he is leading a delegation for the government’s global outreach on Operation Sindoor, Tharoor slammed Pakistan’s intransigence despite indisputable evidence of terror attacks perpetrated by its proxies in India. He said the national approach to the issue had changed in the recent past.

“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 LoC 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 conflict, 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,” said Tharoor.

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

Khera posted a video featuring late PM Manmohan Singh’s remarks on surgical strikes during the UPA. “Many surgical strikes were conducted under the UPA,” Khera said on X, tagging Tharoor, after Udit Raj questioned how Tharoor could “denigrate the golden history of his party by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed the LoC and the IB.

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

In response, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said for the Congress, anyone who put national interest above party and family interest was persona non grata. “Udit Raj is abusing Tharoor on the instructions of Rahul because Tharoor is busting his lies on mediation,” the BJP claimed even as AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh again demanded that the PM “break his silence” on repeated US claims of brokering the ceasefire.

“Is it true that US Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick filed a statement in the New York-based US Court of International Trade on May 23, 2025, swearing that President Trump used his tariff power to broker a tenuous ceasefire between India and Pakistan and bring about a fragile peace? Luttnick follows in the footsteps of President Trump, who made this assertion eight times in 11 days in three different countries. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has echoed the same and also mentioned a neutral site for talks between India and Pakistan. Pradhan mantri chuppi todo,” Ramesh said.