Congress points to passage from Shashi Tharoor’s own book to slam his praise for Modi Govt over Op Sindoor

The Congress party continues to criticise its Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor for his praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government abroad on India's military action in Pakistan.

This time, the Congress pointed to, Tharoor's own book where he had criticised the Modi government for ‘shamelessly exploiting’ the 2016 surgical strikes.

Tharoor, who is taking India case post Operation Sindoor in foreign countries, has with his remarks seemingly riled his party for showing support for the Modi government over recent military actions across the border in Pakistan and Pakistan-ccupied-Kashmir (PoK).

Tharoor, who is leading a multi-party delegation in a global outreach programme, said in Panama earlier this week that India has changed its approach in recent years. The Thiruvananthapuram MP said what has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay.

The Paradixical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi

The remarks didn't go well with many Congress leaders who reminded Tharoor about surgical strikes under the UPA government with Udit Raj even dubbing him “super spokesperson” of the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP).

Congress Media and Publicity Department chairman Pawan Khera, one of the party leaders targeting Tharoor, shared a page of Tharoor's book ‘The Paradixical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi And His India'

The book by Tharoor is about the Prime Minister Modi and was released on 26 October 2018 by former prime minister late Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram, Arun Shourie, and Pavan Varma.

"The shameless exploitation of the 2016 'surgical strikes' along the Line of Control with Pakistan, and of a military raid in hot pursuit of rebels in Mayanmar, as a party election tool – something that the Congress had never done despite having authorised several such strikes earlier -- marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require both discretion and non-partisanship," reads the page in the book shared by Khera on X.

On 29 September 2016, teams of Indian Army Para (Special Forces) crossed the Line of Control into Pakistani-administered Kashmir to attack targets up to a kilometer within territory held by Pakistan. The raid, which later went on to be known as Surgical Strike, was carried out ten days after four militants had attacked an Indian army outpost at Uri, Jammu and Kashmir on 18 September 2016, and killed 19 soldiers.

Tharoor Clarifies

After the visible unease in the Congress, however, Tharoor said on 20 May that his remarks were about India’s reprisals for terrorist attacks across the Line of Control (LoC), and not about past wars.

Tharoor said he was “clearly and explicitly” referring only to recent retaliations, not earlier military conicts. He said he explained that previous Indian responses to attacks were “restrained and constrained” out of respect for the LoC and the International Border (IB).