Congress MP Shashi Tharoor Embarks On Foreign Mission To Russia, UK, & Greece Amid Evolving Global Conflicts

New Delhi: Congress MP and former United Nations deputy secretary general Shashi Tharoor who was handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lead an all-party delegation on Operation Sindoor to the western countries, including the United States in May, is now again on a foreign mission covering at least three important countries of Russia, the United Kingdom and Greece.

While the purpose of his visit to these countries has not been announced, it assumes significance as it comes soon after his one-on-one meeting with Modi that lasted over an hour and took place a day after the PM hosted all the seven all-party delegations over dinner at his 7 Lok Kalyan Marg residence last Tuesday where he thanked them for pitching India’s views abroad. FPJ's calls to his office went unanswered.

A section of the media had reported that he left for Moscow on a two-week trip. Tharoor, who has been showering praises in Modi, as also other Opposition leaders, through various platforms, often earning the ire of his own Congress colleagues, incidentally again praised the PM in an article published in The Hindu on Monday.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor On His Visit to 5 Countries In Western Hemisphere

The Congress MP, who had led a delegation to five countries in the western hemisphere -- Guyana, Panama, Colombia, Brazil and the United States – described the outreach that covered 32 countries in all “a moment of national resolve and effective communication (and) affirmed that India, when united, can project its voice with clarity and conviction...” The article was effusive of the PM, whose energy, dynamism and willingness to engage (with other nations)” was lauded by Tharoor, leading to the PMO itself sharing it on its page on “X”.

While little is known about this “second leg” of Tharoor’s visit abroad, he gave a small interview to RT Hindi in St Petersburg in which he dwelt on the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict and spoke about the deaths in Gaza, regarding which the Congress has been seeking open condemnation from the Centre.

Tharoor said, “India wants peaceful resolutions across the world. We would never want this war to last any longer. We do not want terrorism to survive in this world. With that, we also think about people's lives, their need for humanitarian aid, and for people to live, it is essential that the wars should end quickly. You know 55,000 civilians have died in Gaza.”

On what is happening against Iran, Tharoor said, “no one wants that a new nation should make nuclear bombs, but with that if this war would prolong, it would push up the prices of oil and petroleum and that would be very dangerous.” Elaborating on the impact of the conflict in the Gulf, Tharoor said: “There are a lot of Indian and other ships which pass through the Strait of Hormuz and they could be interrupted.” He added that “a lot of our students too had to be evacuated from Iran and Israel.”

“So,” the Congress MP said, “whenever there is a conflict, it impacts the lives of common citizens. We think about this in India, and so it is better that wars are ended and people sit together and ponder on how to keep everyone safe in the future. I think this is the right direction to proceed further.”

Tharoor’s outreach is critical as he would be travelling to Russia, which is an all-weather ally of India; to the UK which again is a strong business partner of India, and to Greece, which like Cyprus – that the PM visited recently – does not enjoy good relations with Turkey, that had helped Pakistan with missiles and drones that were used against India recently. Incidentally, on what he personally felt about India’s relations with Russia, Tharoor had written an article in September 2022 with the headline, “India’s long infatuation with Russia must end”.

In this, he had written: “The need for India to establish and shore up its own partnerships is magnified by the risk of a hostile China-Pakistan axis on its borders. Russia will be ambivalent, at best, about such an axis; at worst, it will be complicit. The Russia of the foreseeable future, severely weakened by its Ukrainian misadventure, is not a Russia on which India can rely.”

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