The internal rift within the Congress party deepened further on Thursday after senior leader Pawan Khera publicly cited a critical passage from fellow Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s 2018 book, The Paradoxical Prime Minister, to question Tharoor’s recent remarks praising the Modi government’s military operations.
In a post on social media platform X, Khera shared an underlined excerpt from Tharoor’s book that slammed the BJP for its “shameless exploitation” of the 2016 surgical strikes for electoral gains. Khera’s caption read: “I agree with that Dr @ShashiTharoor who wrote about surgical strikes in his book in 2018 – The Paradoxical Prime Minister.”
The quoted passage reads: “The shameless exploitation of the 2016 surgical strikes along the Line of Control with Pakistan, and a military raid in hot pursuit of rebels in Myanmar, as party election tool—something the Congress had never done despite having authorized several such strikes earlier—marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require both discretion and non-partisanship.”
Khera’s post is widely seen as a veiled critique of Tharoor’s recent statements during an official visit to Panama, where he appeared to praise the Modi government’s counter-terrorism actions, including the 2016 Uri surgical strike and the 2019 Balakot airstrike, describing them as “a shift in India’s approach to terrorism.”
Facing backlash from within the party, Tharoor clarified his remarks in another post on X, emphasizing that he had referred specifically to “reprisals for terrorist attacks” and not historical wars across the Line of Control.
“I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars,” Tharoor wrote. “Previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB.”
The controversy has sparked broader criticism of Tharoor from within his own ranks. Congress leader Udit Raj earlier accused Tharoor of being a “spokesperson for the publicity stunts of the BJP,” prompting support from other senior leaders including Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera.
Adding to the internal unease, Tharoor’s inclusion in the multi-party international delegation—currently touring the United States, Guyana, Panama, and other nations—was reportedly not among the official names recommended by the Congress for such outreach efforts.
The episode signals ongoing tensions within the Congress party, with ideological and strategic differences coming increasingly into the public domain.
