Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was again absent from a meeting of the party’s Lok Sabha MPs chaired by Rahul Gandhi on Friday, extending a pattern of non-attendance that has drawn internal attention in recent weeks.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP, already under scrutiny for remarks viewed by some colleagues as favourable to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has now missed three consecutive key meetings of the Congress’ parliamentary strategy groups.
Party sources said Tharoor had informed the leadership of his unavailability in advance. Chandigarh MP Manish Tiwari was also absent. Tharoor’s public schedule showed he was in Kolkata on Thursday night for an event hosted by the Prabha Khaitan Foundation, suggesting he may not have returned to Delhi in time for Friday’s meeting.
Tharoor’s latest absence comes after he skipped the November 30 strategy meet chaired by Sonia Gandhi, which he attributed to being mid-flight from Kerala. “I did not skip it; I was on a plane, coming from Kerala,” he clarified on December 1, after questions were raised within the party. His office had also explained that he and his 90-year-old mother had been moved to a later flight, making it impossible to attend on time. KC Venugopal, too, had missed that meeting due to local body poll campaigning in Kerala.
He had earlier missed the November 18 Congress meeting on the contentious Special Intensive Revision (SIR) voter re-verification exercise, citing ill health. That absence came a day after he attended a private event at which the Prime Minister spoke, an event followed by an X post from Tharoor praising certain aspects of the PM’s speech.
The comments sparked pushback from Congress leaders Supriya Shrinate and Sandeep Dikshit, with the latter even suggesting that Tharoor could consider leaving the party if he found Modi so impressive. Tharoor responded by stressing the need for “cooperation across ideologies” in India’s federal system.
His string of absences has revived unease in the party, particularly after he was the sole Congress representative invited to the state banquet hosted by the President for visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin. Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera had taken a pointed swipe then, remarking: “Everyone’s conscience has a voice. When my leaders aren’t invited, but I am, we should understand why the game is being played, who is playing the game, and why we shouldn’t be part of it.”
According to reports, the last major meeting Tharoor attended was in October, a six-hour-long session of Congress leaders from Kerala, also attended by Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, ahead of next year’s Assembly polls.
At Friday’s meeting, Rahul Gandhi reviewed the party’s performance during the Winter Session and urged MPs to intensify their attacks on the government before the session concludes on December 19. Gandhi repeated his claim from Thursday that his and Priyanka Gandhi’s speeches had left Home Minister Amit Shah “nervous,” saying Shah used “the wrong language” and appeared under “tremendous mental pressure.”
