Rift deepens? Congress cites Shashi Tharoor’s own book 'Paradoxical Prime Minister' in fresh jibe

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is facing fire from within his own party after his remarks in Panama appeared to credit the Modi government with launching India’s first crossborder strikes on terror bases, comments that directly contradicted his own past writing, highlighted and shared on social media by his party colleague Pawan Khera on Thursday.Tharoor's 2018 book 'The Paradoxical Prime Minister', a sharp critique of Prime Minister Modi, is being used an ammunition against him.Tharoor, speaking in Panama as part of a BJP-led global outreach under Operation Sindoor, said: "When, for the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base... that was already something we had not done before."He added that India went further after the Pulwama attack in 2019 by crossing the international border, and now, “we have gone beyond both...

struck at the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan by hitting terror bases, training centres, terror headquarters in nine places.”His words triggered an immediate and public rebuke from Congress colleague Pawan Khera, who took a pointed swipe by quoting page 209 of Tharoor’s own book 'The Paradoxical Prime Minister'.

The excerpt from the book reads: "The shameless exploitation of the 2016 'surgical strikes' along the Line of Control with Pakistan...

as a party election tool – something the Congress had never had done despite having authorised several such strikes earlier."Sharing the quote, Khera indirectly implied that Tharoor was now contradicting himself to align with the BJP's narrative while undermining the Congress’s security legacy.The criticism came a day after, another Congress leader, Udit Raj, accused Tharoor of “denigrating the golden history of Congress” by ignoring previous cross-border military actions.

"How could you say that before PM Modi, India never crossed the LoC and international border?" he asked, citing Army actions in 1965, the 1971 war, and UPA-era strikes that, he said, were never politicised.Under pressure, Tharoor responded by accusing his critics of distorting his words. "I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars," he posted on X, calling his critics “zealots” and insisting his comments were focused on changes in India’s counterterrorism posture.

The episode reflects deepening tensions within the Congress, where Tharoor’s frequent praise for PM Modi-led government decisions, particularly on foreign policy and national security, is increasingly viewed with suspicion. His role as the Congress face in a BJP-led foreign outreach has only sharpened the divide.