By Sushil Kutty
Flamboyant Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and “dynamic” Prime Minister Narendra Modi — a mutual fan club with Tharoor losing no chance to present Prime Minister Modi with accolades and bouquets, beholden to the Indian Prime Minister for the trust placed on him to defend India on the global stage following ‘Operation Sindoor’.
Call it fawning or whatever, but Tharoor’s effusive praise of Prime Minister Modi would have been taken as “sycophancy” but for the fact that it came from Shashi Tharoor and the Congress took the unalloyed praise as gospel though it wasn’t too happy with Tharoor for his wholesome liberty.
In a latest, Tharoor shocked the Congress by calling the Prime Minister “Prime asset for India”. Tharoor’s train of praise for Modi in recent weeks and days transcends other more effusive praise for the Prime Minister.
How do you find fault with praise when it comes from somebody as trusted as Shashi Tharoor. Try undermining Tharoor’s praise for the Prime Minister and Tharoor will knock the living daylights out of the critic with words mined from Webster’s, Oxford and Cambridge!
And it is a mutual fan club with the Prime Minister singing paeans and the Congress MP reciprocating, almost like “Trump’s Tariffs”. Shashi Tharoor’s admiration for the Prime Minister is all-conquering and wouldn’t ebb even in the face of a cloudburst.
Tharoor’s praise for Modi is not an avalanche but Prime Minister Modi has acknowledged and reciprocated with special favours and extraordinary gestures. Modi is Prime Minister but he is not immune to praise.
Everybody loves praise and when it is the effusive and erudite Tharoor who is doing the praising, then even a Prime Minister is not left unaffected. Shashi Tharoor was chosen to lead one of the seven ‘Operation Sindoor’ delegations and he spoke highly of India’s “calibrated and measured” military response to the Pahalgam terror attack.
Tharoor’s delegation took the Modi government’s anti-terrorism diplomatic outreach to the United States and Brazil, Panama and Mexico, a total of five countries. Tharoor has now sought more support for Prime Minister Modi’s “energy, dynamism and willingness to engage (with other countries)”, labelling Modi “a prime asset for India on the global stage”.
Tharoor’s appeal was in the form of an article published by a newspaper which also carried Sonia Gandhi’s critique of Prime Minister Modi’s foreign policy.
Tharoor also let the newspaper do the talking for him. And the fact that “his article” came within 36 hours of “Sonia Gandhi’s article” tells the story better than a 1000 ships taking to the sea!
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diplomatic outreach saw seven MP delegations visiting 32 countries. Among them, the United States, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Shashi Tharoor, who led the delegation to the United States, called it “a moment of national resolve and effective communication…affirmed that India, when united, can project its voice with clarity and conviction…”
The Congress did not like it, such effusive admiration for a Prime Minister who spends more time lampooning the Congress and the Gandhi family than in acknowledging that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi should be heard and followed.
Tharoor and the Congress had gotten off to a great start when Tharoor chose to become a Congress politician. Oftentimes it used to be said that Shashi Tharoor was a confidante of the Gandhi family, and don’t anybody forget that.
Those were also times when Prime Minister Modi went out of his way to rib Tharoor like when he spoke of Tharoor’s “$50 million girlfriend” and Tharoor didn’t react forcefully enough.
Today, Tharoor is calling Modi’s ‘Operation Sindoor’ another example of the “calibrated and measured” nature of the politics practiced by the Prime Minister.
So, of these two, who is responsible for the changed outlook, Tharoor or Modi? They aren’t the same. But a churning had taken place in the Congress vis a vis Shashi Tharoor even as the Prime Minister developed some sort of unspoken equation with Tharoor.
When exactly Tharoor felt beholden to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister felt beholden to Tharoor is a hard piece of guess. But the symptoms were there to see. Mostly in the form of praise for the Modi government’s actions.
It helps that Shashi Tharoor is the Congress Party’s Thiruvananthapuram MP. Thiruvananthapuram is home to several Congress leaders including veteran AK Antony and his BJP son Anil Antony. For sure, they bumped into each other.
The long and short of it is Tharoor has been the Congress Thiruvananthapuram MP for four back-to-back parliamentary terms and he’s chapping at the bits to play a bigger and more defined role within the Congress.
Tharoor wanted to be party president and contested against Mallikarjun Kharge and he wouldn’t mind being the “CM Face” of the Congress in Kerala. However, if he thought the Gandhi family would understand and assist, nothing of the sort happened.
Tharoor continues to be an “arms length asset” for the Congress. Rahul Gandhi, for example, doesn’t have the time of the day for Shashi Tharoor, and doesn’t give any rope to Tharoor. Rahul Gandhi’s circle of influence doesn’t feature Shashi Tharoor.
On the contrary, Shashi Tharoor is tolerated and is an asset in set-piece situations, but he himself is not “prime asset for the Congress”. No wonder Tharoor calls Prime Minister Modi a “prime asset for India”.
It is another matter that Tharoor played it safe by not calling Prime Minister Modi “prime asset on the national stage”. Praising India’s military response to the Pahalgam terror attack is safer by far.
“Even as a Pakistani delegation was simultaneously present, we found US representatives… echoing our concerns and urging decisive action against terror groups…reinforcing the legitimacy of India’s position,” Tharoor said.
A good portion of Tharoor’s praise Modi outburst is devoted to the ‘Modi hai toh mumkin hai’ syndrome. Holding a candle for Modi is a Tharoor special. “We consistently highlighted the severity of the threat from across our borders, aiming to build global consensus to hold perpetrators accountable.”
The Congress isn’t calling Modi’s outreach a success. Shashi Tharoor was the tallest opposition leader to be on Modi’s delegations, chosen to represent “India” on foreign soil.
Tharoor’s selection wasn’t welcomed by the Congress, but Modi’s selection prevailed and Tharoor is being left to justify, defend and serve. The “frosty relations” between Tharoor and the Congress remain and “no genuine” Congress leader likes Tharoor and his “positive words for the PM.”
Will Shashi Tharoor jump ship and give Prime Minister Narendra Modi reason to harbour a sense of accomplishment? The former top United Nations official and a former External Affairs Minister would be a catch to savour.
Some BJP MPs speak of the BJP’s “super spokesperson”.
Tharoor has been accused of ‘publicity stunts’ and “flattering Prime Minister Modi”. When will Prime Minister Modi ask Shashi Tharoor to crossover, Shashi Tharoor can’t make it plainer though he has repeatedly dismissed such talk, saying there were only “differences of opinion…with only some elements of (Congress) leadership”.
Tharoor continues to be loyal to the Congress and its ideology and the Prime Minister, for all his “prime asset” credentials, isn’t moving to accepting Tharoor as a “prime asset” to be invited to join the party! (IPA Service)