The party’s reluctance to acknowledge the stature of Mr Tharoor, with his background in international relations as a member of the UN executive and a former minister of state in external affairs in the UPA government, may be understood in the sense that the high command may see him as a threat to its leadership structure that is loaded with three family figures in the Gandhis
Congress appears to have lost the plot over the national mission of undertaking an extensive diplomatic outreach with seven teams of all-party delegates to various countries. The party not only displayed petty-mindedness over omitting the name of its MP Shashi Tharoor but also slammed the Centre for picking the parliamentarian best suited to the task.
The party’s reluctance to acknowledge the stature of Mr Tharoor, with his background in international relations as a member of the UN executive and a former minister of state in external affairs in the UPA government, may be understood in the sense that the high command may see him as a threat to its leadership structure that is loaded with three family figures in the Gandhis.
Naming candidates to join delegations that will present India’s views on Pakistan’s nefarious links to terrorism and why India attacked terror camps and military installations while exposing various false claims of Pakistan in the matter was a national task that was to serve the cause of explaining the principled stand to the world. The Congress may have had a right to nominate, but the party made it a bit of a joke by naming a couple of candidates unsuited to the task even as the nomination of Anand Sharma was accepted.
An articulate Tharoor is thought of as best suited to this task of presenting why Operation Sindoor became necessary after the Pahalgam killings of tourists to Jammu & Kashmir that had all the signs of an attack conceived in Pakistan. His party may have a point on the need to consult it on its nominees, but the least the Congress could have done was to communicate with the government on the choice of personnel before announcing it on its own and then bringing into the open the internal wrangling over a defiant Mr Tharoor who does not always toe the party line.
There is little to question over the choice of delegates to be on the seven teams as those who are known to express themselves well, regardless of their political affiliation, have been chosen to be the nation’s spokespersons. It is a pity the Congress did not see it this way and only and wrongly deemed Mr Tharoor’s choice as politicisation.
