In a sharp counter to Shashi Tharoor’s defence of his recent praise for India’s cross-border strikes, Congress leader Pawan Khera on Thursday posted a highlighted excerpt from Tharoor’s own 2018 book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister, in which the MP had slammed the BJP for the “shameless exploitation” of military operations. Khera’s move came shortly after Tharoor, in from Panama, hit out at “critics and trolls” questioning his remarks lauding India’s counter-terror response under the Modi government.
“I agree with that Dr @ShashiTharoor who wrote about surgical strikes in his book in 2018 — The Paradoxical Prime Minister,” Khera posted on X, alongside a photo of a marked passage from the book. The excerpt sharply criticises the BJP for politicising military operations, especially the 2016 surgical strikes.
In the highlighted lines, Tharoor had written in the book:
“The shameless exploitation of the 2016 surgical strikes along the Line of Control with Pakistan, and a military raid in hot pursuit of rebels in Myanmar, as party election tool — something the Congress had never done despite having authorized several such strikes earlier — marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require both discretion and non-partisanship.”
The series of posts comes after Tharoor’s recent comments during a visit to Panama, where the Thiruvananthapuram MP lauded India’s counter-terror strikes, including the 2016 Uri and 2019 Balakot operations, as a sign of a “changed mindset” in dealing with terrorism. Tharoor also praised Operation Sindoor, the recent cross-border military action under the Modi government, drawing applause from BJP leaders but consternation within his own party.
Reacting to Tharoor's remarks, Congress leader Udit Raj on Wednesday accused him of dishonesty toward the party. In a strongly worded post on X, Raj wrote: “My dear Shashi Tharoor, Alas! I could prevail upon PM Modi to declare you as super spokesperson of BJP, even declaring [you] as foreign minister before landing in India. How could you denigrate the golden history of Congress by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed the LoC and international border?”
Facing mounting criticism for his statements, both from within the Congress and outside, Tharoor issued a strongly worded clarification on X on Thursday.
"After a long and successful day in Panama, I have to wind up at midnight here with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don't really have time for this, but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC in the past. I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars,” he wrote.
“My remarks were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone, during which previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB,” Tharoor added.
He concluded on a caustic note: “But as usual, critics and trolls are welcome to distort my views and words as they see fit. I genuinely have better things to do. Goodnight.”
