Is Shashi Tharoor’s exit from Congress imminent? Cracks widen further with Kerala leaders’ boycott call

As Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor’s strained relationship with the Congress high command continues, his party colleagues in Kerala are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism and have begun openly boycotting him.

 

On July 20, senior Congress leader K. Muraleedharan declared that Tharoor would no longer be invited to any party events in Thiruvananthapuram. He went so far as to say that Congress workers no longer consider Tharoor one of their own. Echoing the stance of opposition leader V.D. Satheesan—who had maintained that it was entirely up to the national leadership to act on the Tharoor issue—Muraleedharan reiterated that it was a matter for the high command to decide.

 

On July 19, the Ernakulam District Congress Committee (DCC) chose not to invite Tharoor to a protest programme in Kochi, despite his presence in the city. Muraleedharan’s statement regarding Tharoor’s exclusion from party events in Thiruvananthapuram came in the aftermath of that incident.

 

Tharoor was also notably absent from the UDF campaign for the Nilambur assembly bypolls held in June. 

 

The bypoll was announced amid tensions between Tharoor and the Congress national leadership, following the NDA government’s decision to include him in an all-party delegation to foreign countries. Tharoor later stated that he did not campaign in Nilambur because he was not invited.

 

On Saturday, Tharoor remarked that cross-party cooperation on national security matters was often viewed as disloyalty—comments perceived by many in the party as a veiled criticism of Congress's current position. 

 

Kasaragod MP Rajmohan Unnithan launched a scathing attack on Tharoor, alleging that his presence at parliamentary party meetings could compromise confidentiality and accusing him of potentially leaking information to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

 

Mocking Tharoor, Unnithan said, “He would need a very thick skin to attend such a meeting.” He even urged Tharoor to voluntarily leave Congress. 

 

“He need not wait to be expelled and try to become a martyr. That would be the best thing he could do right now. Everyone wants that to happen,” Unnithan said.

 

Interestingly, both Muraleedharan and Unnithan had tumultuous episodes with the party leadership and faced career setbacks. Muraleedharan and his father, former Chief Minister K. Karunakaran, had left the party after falling out with the leadership. When Muraleedharan sought re-entry into the party in 2009, the high command initially rejected his request, citing his earlier criticisms of the leadership. He was eventually readmitted in February 2011, after his father’s death. Back in 2009, Unnithan, who was then an AICC member, was suspended from the party based on allegations over a personal matter.

 

Many in the Congress leadership in Kerala believe that the high command has shown leniency towards Tharoor on multiple junctures in his political career, which was ridden with controversies. Even those Congress leaders who backed Tharoor’s campaign when he contested against Mallikarjun Kharge for the party president’s post are not vocally supporting him now. 

 

Nevertheless, Tharoor recently shared on his social media profile a survey by an independent agency, which said he is the best bet for the chief ministerial post in the 2026 Kerala polls for the “faction-ridden UDF alliance.” This also angered the state leadership of Congress. 

India