One key element in political parties is the party line. Congress's outspoken Kerala MP Shashi Tharoor, however, does not seem to comply with it all the time. He started toeing the party line again after meeting Rahul Gandhi only months before the Kerala Assembly elections. And now, with the elections done and the Congress-led UDF government in power, he has once again started speaking his own mind.
This is the first instance after the Kerala Assembly elections where Congress leaders have seen Tharoor speaking in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, something that does not sit well with the party's media communication strategy.
Two back-to-back statements from Tharoor drew flak from the party. At a time when the Congress has been criticising the Modi government's foreign policy, Tharoor made a statement in support of the prime minister. "PM Modi made his point clear both in the public and private meetings with the (US) president. It is important to convey the message that in wartime, civilian sailors on commercial ships should not be targets of combat. They are not soldiers, and that is the message PM Modi conveyed," he reportedly said.
Later, in a post on Kashmir on X, Tharoor described his meeting with Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha as “excellent”. He also wrote about his discussion with him on the situation in the Union Territory and the encouraging progress towards normalcy.
Both instances drew flak from the Congress's communication department, which is responsible for translating the party's political decisions into public messaging. First, it was Pawan Khera, chairman of the media and publicity department, who wrote on X: "My senior colleague Dr Shashi Tharoor's admiration for PM Modi appears to have transcended the limitations of the physical world. He now seems capable of hearing what Modi doesn't even say.
"Tharoorji somehow heard forceful assertions, robust pushback, and uncompromising diplomacy that never made it into the official record."
Later, it was Congress chief spokesperson in Jammu and Kashmir, Ravinder Sharma, who reacted to the post, saying that Tharoor should have spared time to meet the people of the Kashmir Valley to understand the ground reality.
According to senior Congress leaders, Tharoor has made himself unpopular among sections of the party, and there could be greater pushback from within the party against him, even if not vocally. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi has built the party's political narrative around a resistance front against the BJP, saying the saffron camp has weakened the institutions of the country. Tharoor's line of argument, however, directly helps the BJP.
According to party insiders, the Congress's media department has been given a free hand to deal with Tharoor’s remarks.
