Shashi Tharoor’s fresh visit to Kashmir sparked another row with his party as the Jammu and Kashmir unit of Congress criticized him for not meeting his party colleagues, even though he met LG Manoj Sinha.
Congressman Tharoor shared a post on X where he spoke about his meeting with LG Sinha in Srinagar and how the situation in the erstwhile state of J&K is moving towards ‘normalcy’. Tharoor wrote that he discussed the situation of Jammu and Kashmir with the LG and the “encouraging progress towards normalcy”.
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“When I arrived he was speaking to the president of the Kashmir Writers’ Association and the women’s organization – a positive outreach that I welcomed. There are still many challenges and there is still a lot to be done, but I left the meeting feeling more positive than I have felt in a while,” Tharoor wrote on Channel X.
Congress reacts
Tharoor was in Srinagar to attend the Nalanda Dialogues. However, the Jammu and Kashmir Congress unit expressed disappointment over Tharoor not meeting the people of Kashmir or his party colleagues.
“The people of Kashmir were also expecting you to meet them to get a better understanding of the ground realities. At least we could have had some time to meet the party men who are fighting for a state that was snatched away from us 7 years ago,” JKPCC spokesperson Ravinder Sharma wrote in response to Tharoor’s X post.
Congress v. Tharoor
This came in the wake of Tharoor’s confrontation with his party. The grand old party on Saturday slammed Tharoor for his “admiration” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks that “Prime Minister Modi made his point in public and private meetings with the President”.
The party said it seemed to have transcended the physical world as it now seemed able to hear what the Prime Minister never said.
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However, Tharoor, the party’s MP for Thiruvananthapuram, said he found it unusual that a statement on the protection of Indian civilian seafarers was given a partisan touch.
“It is important to convey the message that in wartime, civilian seafarers on board merchant ships should not be targets of combat. They are not soldiers, and this is the message conveyed by Prime Minister Modi,” he reportedly said.
Asked about the comments, Congress Chief Information and Publicity Officer Pawan Khera said in a press conference that he did not see Tharoor’s statement, but he also did not see in the joint Indo-US statement a reference to the killing of three Indian sailors by the US in the Gulf of Oman, challenging Trump’s repeated claims of halting Operation Sindoor, and the attack on the Iranian frigate Iris Dina.
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In response to Khera’s statements, Shashi Tharoor published a report on the issue of safety of Indian sailors that was raised during the Modi-Trump meeting.
The congressman also posted a summary from Google’s Gemini AI tool in connection with the meeting, which stated that the incident in which three Indian sailors were killed in a US attack in the Gulf of Oman was raised.
“I read widely and I retain what I read. I have never in my life been accused of distorting or distorting any facts or statements, and I stand by my summary of what I read in the print media about these statements, which were reportedly made when the Prime Minister was sitting next to Trump,” Tharoor added.
The Congress leader also accused the party of being “interested in scoring political points rather than addressing concerns” about Indians losing their lives in the US-Iran war.
