Shashi Tharoor Responds To Reports Of Congress 'Upset' With MP: 'I Made It Clear...'

Day after reports suggested that Congress is 'upset' with Shashi Tharoor over his repeated remarks on the India-Pakistan conflict, the Thiruvanathapuram MP said he has not been informed of it and that the views he expressed were not of the party or the government. 

Tharoor said he was part of Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Wednesday and there was no official communication from the party on any such issue.

The Congress MP was reacting to reports of some Congress leaders saying Tharoor had crossed the 'lakshman rekha' with his repeated comments on the India-Pakistan conflict.

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The sources made the assertion after a meeting of CWC members and senior leaders, including Tharoor, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Sachin Pilot, among others, at its 24, Akbar Road office in New Delhi.

Responding to the claims, Shashi Tharoor told reporters, "I don't know where this comes from. I was in a meeting, a closed-door meeting of the Congress Working Committee leaders yesterday...I must say that in that time there was certainly no reference to any of this and no reference to me."

"I don't see much point in reacting to something of which there's been no official communication to me of any kind, nor any discussion of which I was a part. I made it very clear I'm not a spokesman of the party. I'm not a spokesman of the government either, I might add," he said.

Tharoor said he expressed his views on the India-Pakistan tensions as an Indian and added that the Congress also expressed complete solidarity with the government and the armed forces on the issue.

"People seem to think I have some knowledge about some of these subjects and so they come and ask me my views and I make it very clear that I'm expressing my personal views as an Indian, as a proud citizen and certainly don't forget that my own party had declared complete solidarity with the government and the armed forces at the beginning of this conflict and in that spirit I also expressed that support," the Congress leader added.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, responding to Tharoor's remarks on India-Pakistan tensions, said that the Congress MP's statements were his own views and added that the Congress has been questioning the government over Donald Trump's claims of mediation on the India-Pakistan issue.

"That is his opinion. When Mr. Tharoor speaks, it is his view and it is not the stand of the party.  Tharoor has been making comments on the India-Pakistan conflict that are at variance with the party's stand, which has been questioning the government over US President Donald Trump's claims of mediating a ceasefire between the two countries," Ramesh said.

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