What does Congress want, Kiren Rijiju backs Shashi Tharoor amid party heat

As Congress MP Shashi Tharoor faces party heat over his praise for the Narendra Modi-led government after Operation Sindoor, the veteran has received backing from BJP leader and Union Minister Kiren Rijiju. Taking to X, Rijiju slammed the Congress and questioned its expectations from MPs who are currently in various countries as part of Operation Sindoor global outreach missions. "What does the Congress party want & how much they really care for the country?" he wrote on the microblogging platform, retweeting an earlier post by him wherein he said all leaders must speak in one voice.

The controversy erupted after Tharoor, currently leading an all-party parliamentary delegation in Panama, praised India’s strong counter-terror stance and praised the 2016 surgical strike and the 2019 Balakot air strike. Tharoor said the country’s approach to terrorism had evolved under the current government, and terrorists now understood that any provocation would come at a cost.

Addressing the Indian community in Panama City, Tharoor said, "Some women cried out. The told th terrorists - killed me too, and they said, 'No, go back, tell what happened to you'. We heard, we heard their cries and India decided that the colour of the sindoor, the vermilion colour on the forehead of our women, will also match the colour of the blood of the killers, the perpetrators, the attackers..."

Tharoor also echoed Prime Minister Modi’s statement, stressing that Operation Sindoor was essential after the killing of 26 men. “Our Prime Minister has made it very clear Operation Sindoor was necessary because these terrorists came and wiped the sindoor off the foreheads of 26 women by depriving them of their husbands and fathers, their married lives,” he said.

Tharoor’s statements drew sharp reactions from within his own party. Senior Congress leader Udit Raj accused him of doing a better job than any BJP spokesperson in praising Prime Minister Modi. “Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is the super spokesperson of the BJP, and what the BJP leaders are not saying when it came to speaking in favour of PM Modi and the government, he is doing,” Raj told ANI.

Udit Raj also slammed Tharoor on X, saying, "How could you denigrate the golden history of Congress by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed LoC."

Congress leaders Pawan Khera and Jairam Ramesh also reiterated Udit Raj's post on X amid the party's top brass is miffed with Tharoor as there is a sense within the party that he is giving coverfire to the Narendra Modi government post Operation Sindoor, where India destroyed terror camps and struck military sites in Pakistan, sources said to India Today.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera also reacted to Tharoor's surgical strike remark and said that the multiple surgical strikes were conducted under the UPA government but were never publicised. Khera also shared an old interview of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh where he confirmed that such strikes took place during his tenure.

"However, BJP IT Cell in-charge Amit Malviya refuted the Congress's claim about conducting surgical strikes prior to 2016, and supported Shashi Tharoor’s statement. 'Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is absolutely right in saying that there was no surgical strike before September 29, 2016,' Malviya wrote on X. He cited a reply from the Defence Ministry to an RTI application, which said that there are no records of any surgical strikes before that date."

Operation Sindoor involved precision strikes by Indian forces on nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7, targeting outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba. A war-like situation escalated for four days until both countries agreed to a ceasefire on May 10.

The Indian government has since launched a global outreach initiative to expose Pakistan's terror links, forming seven multi-party delegations to carry the message across the world.

Tharoor is heading one such delegation. Along with him, the team includes MPs Sarfaraz Ahmed, G M Harish Balayogi, Shashank Mani Tripathi, Tejasvi Surya, Bhubaneswar Kalita, Mallikarjun Devda, Milind Deora, and former Indian Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu. After visiting Guyana, the delegation is now in Panama for a three-day official visit.