Politics these days is an absolute pain in the neck. Turn on Twitter or the TV and all you can see are CAPITAL LETTERS SCREAMING AT YOUR FACE. The most noise these days is about Shashi Tharoor, with everyone absolutely convinced he’s already packing up his bags from the Indian National Congress.
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That’s the big viral story.
But I have to stop you there. He is not leaving the party. The internet is infamous for taking a slight gaffe and blowing it up into an epic, over-the-top, soapy drama. Betrayals and betrayals all around.
The claims of a major fight between Tharoor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi are not without substance.
However, the real context of the fight has been twisted all out of shape. The entire tussle is not about some political heavyweight changing parties; it’s about a huge, uncomfortable debate about foreign policy. Here’s what actually transpired at the G7 meet.
The situation snowballed when Modi met President Donald Trump. At a highly publicized bilateral meeting during the G7 summit held recently at Evian in France, President Trump and Modi had a conversation behind closed doors, first and foremost, about the situation in the Gulf of Oman where tensions are running high and where three innocent Indian civilian sailors were recently killed following an American operation codenamed Operation Sindoor. That killed civilians in the Gulf and led Congress and Rahul Gandhi in particular to launch a blistering attack on Modi’s approach in the region.
Rahul was livid, alleging that Modi, who is now buddies with the US President, would do absolutely nothing when Indian nationals were being killed.
And as the US President was with his Indian counterpart discussing the issue, then out came Shashi Tharoor. He’d just given an interview with Le Figaro, a leading French publication where he had actually ended up coming to the defense of Prime Minister Modi. In fact, in that interview Tharoor seemed quite impressed with Modi. The Minister for External Affairs essentially claimed that PM Modi had put forth his views most strongly to President Donald Trump during their meeting with the visiting leader, both privately as well as in the open, strongly communicating how civilian sailors on commercial shipping should not be victimised in a theatre of war.
All Hell Breaks Loose In The Congress Party That of course sent the Congress Party Headquarters into a total tizzy.
A top party leader out and out publicly coming to the defense of the Prime Minister, whom the party leadership was vehemently attacking, would look totally absurd and, understandably, this had indeed caused a lot of awkwardness in the opposition ranks. Congress party spokesman Pawan Khera wasn’t the least concerned about what he had to do to bring Tharoor to task. “Pawan Khera in particular hit out hard.
At a press conference, Khera launched a series of stinging sarcasm at his own colleague’s’ remarks. While claiming that the minister may have gone into space when discussing PM Modi’s thoughts, where the said observations were just pure hallucination and not what the Prime Minister spoke, Khera asserted that any Indian would have told you that at least in the G7 meet, the matter related to civilian deaths in the Gulf of Oman were not even remotely discussed, either in writing or orally” As part of the joint statement between the two premiers, there were no remarks made concerning the three sailors lost to the operation,nor was there any statement mentioning attack on Iranian Frigate, nor were there any words condemning any particular leader,” Khera taunted and asked the former Minister for external affairs how he even heard that such issues was pushed so hard. Tharoor, to his astonishment, was left stunned by the response.
He soon went on to post a few tweets criticizing the Congress Party’s decision.
He even said that it was ‘extraordinary’ that ‘a comment designed to ensure the protection of Indian civilians should be twisted into a headline-grabbing cheap shot for political gain. ‘ It was basically about ensuring that even at the risk of conflict that all civilian seafarers on commercial vessels should be safe he wrote in one tweet. In another tweet he claimed ‘My commentary during my visit to France was entirely aimed at highlighting the importance of protecting civilianseafarers on board commercial ships from the dangers of conflicts around the world and of ensuring that they have safepassage to their destinations..” The Ruling Party Capitalizes Big On The Gaffe-s.
Of Course the ruling party,BJP, not for the first time jumped to capitalize on such a gaffe.
“BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla immediately released a video where he mocked Rahul Gandhi for getting a birthday present from his ally in the form of Tharoor’s comments. The BJP seemed to have strategically started a targeted campaign against Rahul, where Tharoor’s commentary would surely be used as an exhibit to drive home the point of Congress leaders not wanting any association with Rahul and his approach towards nationalism and policy.” ‘This is probably the greatest birthday present that Rahul Gandhi could have asked for on his big day from within the Congress party,’ he quipped.
Another senior BJP leader Pradeep Bhandari tweeted, ‘While at least on matters of national interest, PM Modi is the number one leader, and on matters to speak against the nation, Rahul Gandhi leads the race.’ He added, ‘It only goes to prove what’s been happening for some time that when it comes to national security and important global decisions, the top leadership of the INC can’t be relied upon. It comes to my mind immediately who’s in opposition’s best interests.
It comes down to a carefully crafted move to make the Congress look weakened.
The Fact Is That The Politics In Delhi Is Just Too Petty to Comprehend people automatically jump to conclude somebody has been sacked by political partners just when you see both sides arguing, and the entire reason seems to be Tharoor himself. Tharoor is a Former Diplomat of long standing with United Nations. Such former members of the administration and diplomatic cadre are expected to look at the affairs relating to Foreign policy and other national issues from a different lens than those with political Backgrounds. Having the opportunity and the mandate to represent Kerala in the lower House of the Parliament in Indian Parliament from the Indian National Congress – indeed for two terms – Tharoor seems to be comfortable and deeply seated with the organization and as we can see, he has never gone rogue or had had had any serious disagreement over and above foreign policy.
If, Tharoor resigns at such a juncture on the pretext of not being able to agree with Rahul Gandhi on foreign policy during the G-7 Summit, this will probably send a very strong message about the entire congress party being in doldrums.
However nothing can be considered final, until then let’s all just sit and watch, the ongoing, very interesting development of Delhi Politics.”
