NEW DELHI: Amid row over senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s TNIE opinion piece hailing the LDF government’s development initiatives, the Congress high command has summoned senior leaders and MPs in Kerala to Delhi.
The meeting scheduled to take place on Friday will be chaired by Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi at the party’s new headquarters Indira Bhavan.
It will likely discuss ways to douse the infighting ahead of crucial local body and assembly elections in the state.
Congress Working Committee members from the state Shashi Tharoor, Kodikunnil Suresh, Ramesh Chennithala, and KPCC president K Sudhakaran, Opposition leader V D Satheesan are among the leaders who will attend the meeting.
Other senior leaders Mullappally Ramachandran, UDF convenor M M Hassan, and V M Sudheeran will also attend the meeting.
It comes after Tharoor’s one-on-one meeting with Rahul Gandhi last week.
Tharoor's close associates have said that he had conveyed his unhappiness over being sidelined in the party at the national level and the state level.
However, Tharoor did not divulge what transpired in the meeting with Gandhi.
Early this week, Tharoor’s public criticism of a leadership vacuum in the state unit and his projection as the Congress' face ahead of the 2026 Assembly polls left the party irked.
Meanwhile, speaking to TNIE, a senior leader said that the meeting will focus on the party’s preparations for the local body elections.
Another leader said that the leadership may also discuss the factionional feud and differences among top leaders.
In an Indian Express podcast, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said he had other 'options' if the party did not need his services.
His comments have ruffled feathers in the Congress camp, which is already facing acute infighting among the rank and file.
The four-time MP was under fire from the state unit as he put it in a tight spot. However, Tharoor claimed that his article had no political references and that his focus was solely on Kerala's entrepreneurial growth.
The ruling CPI (M) had wholeheartedly welcomed his remarks.
