‘Bharat ki baat sunata hoon’: Amid Shashi Tharoor row, Manish Tewari's cryptic post deepens Congress rift
Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting with members of multi-party delegations including Congress MPs Manish Tewari, Shashi Tharoor, Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde and others | PTI
Amid the growing friction between Shashi Tharoor and the Congress leadership, another party MP Manish Tewari’s cryptic social media post on why he was benched during the Operation Sindoor debate in parliament has set tongues wagging in the political circles.
Tewari, along with Tharoor, was among the leaders who were picked by the government to represent India globally as part of the delegations following the Operation Sindoor.
Sharing a news article titled 'Spoke in favour of govt: Why Congress benched Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari during Operation Sindoor debate’, Tewari on Tuesday evoked Manoj Kumar's iconic song from 'Purab aur Pashchim'—“Bharat ka rehne waala hoon, Bharat ki baat sunata hoon”.
The article claimed that none of the Congress leaders picked by the government as part of the delegations has found a place in the list of the party's speakers in the lower house.
"Hai preet jahaan ki reet sada, main geet wahaan ke gaata hoon, Bharat ka rehne waala hoon, Bharat ki baat sunata hoon - Jai Hind,” Tewari wrote, along with a screenshot of the article.
The Congress leader's post is seen as a message to the party leadership and an assertion that he was benched as he spoke in favour of the country.
Earlier, speaking in Addis Ababa as part of the delegation, Tewari had said: "When it comes to India's self-respect, we all rise above party politics".
There were speculations about whether Tharoor and Tewari, who had strongly defended India’s military campaign against Pakistan in the wake of the Pahalgam attack, would speak in the Lok Sabha or not during the debate.
On Monday, reports claimed that the Congress leadership asked Tharoor if he would like to speak, but the Thiruvananthapuram MP declined the offer.
Tharoor and the party leadership have been at loggerheads following the MP’s recent comments supporting the government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s handling of the Pahalgam terror attack and India’s military offensive against the terrorist hubs in Pakistan.
The Congress is eyeing to corner the ruling front in parliament on its alleged silence over India’s loss in the military confrontations and US President Donald Trump’s repeated claim that he had brokered a ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad.
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