'Who are they': Tharoor fires back at fellow Congress leader amid row over national security remarks

In a sharp rebuttal to internal criticism, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday questioned the authority of party colleagues attacking him over his recent remarks on national security.

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The response comes days after senior Kerala Congress leader K Muraleedharan hit out at Tharoor, saying he will not be invited to any party event in Thiruvananthapuram until he changed his stance.

“First of all, it seems to me that the people saying this also have to have a basis for saying this. Who are these people? What is their position in the party? I would like to know,” Tharoor told reporters, responding to Muraleedharan’s assertion that the Thiruvananthapuram MP was no longer considered “one of us.”

#WATCH | Delhi: On statements by Congress leaders against him, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says, "The people who are saying this should have some basis for saying so. Who are they? I want to know. Then we will see. Don't ask me about the behaviour of others. I can talk about my… pic.twitter.com/KDJF1Un21D

— ANI (@ANI) July 22, 2025

The intra-party rift deepened after Tharoor, also a Congress Working Committee (CWC) member, voiced support for the Central Government and armed forces on recent national security developments.

The Congress MP had said that a lot of people have been very critical of him because of his stand. “But I will stand my ground, because I believe this is the right thing for the country,” Tharoor said at an event in Kochi on Saturday.

Tharoor had also said that when people like him call for cooperating with other parties in the interests of national security, their own parties feel that it's disloyal to them, and that becomes a big problem.

Muraleedharan had accused Tharoor of straying from party lines, saying, “He is not with us, so there’s no question of him boycotting an event — he won’t be invited.”

The row comes amid simmering tensions within the state unit, especially after Tharoor recently shared a survey projecting him as the UDF’s most preferred chief ministerial face — drawing another round of jabs from Muraleedharan, who quipped, “He should first decide which party he belongs to.” — with PTI