Shashi Tharoor hails Modi govt abroad for Pak strikes, Congress reminds him of UPA-era cross-border Ops

Mint

2 days ago

As Congress leader Shashi Tharoor takes India case post Operation Tharoor in foreign countries, his remarks have seemingly riled the Congress for showing support for the Narendra Modi government over recent military actions across the border in Pakistan and Pakistan-ccupied-Kashmir (PoK)
Many Congress leaders have reminded Tharoor about surgical strikes under the UPA government with Udit Raj even dubbing him 'super spokesperson' of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Tharoor, who is leading a multi-party delegation in a global outreach programme, said in Panama that India has changed its approach in recent years. Speaking to Indian diaspora in Panama earlier this week, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said what has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay.
"For the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base, a launch pad… (after) the Uri strike in September 2016. That was something we had not done before. Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the LoC,' Tharoor said.
This remark perhaps did not go well with the Congress party which has always countered this 'first' claim by the Narendra Modi government. The party has maintaed that Indian security forces conducted surgical strikes under the UPA government as well, but without the party or the government publicising it.
Congress Media and Publicity Department chairman Pawan Khera responded by tagging Tharoor in several posts regarding UPA-time cross border strikes. Khera shared a 2016 PTI report in which the party had latched on S Jaishankar, then Foreign Secretary, over his remarks that the Army had carried out "target specific, limited-calibre, counter- terrorist operations" across LoC in the past too. The party had said that Jaishanjar's remarks "exposed" the BJP and Modi government's "lie" on the recent surgical strikes.
'Professionally done, target-specific, limited-calibre counter-terrorist operations have been carried out across the LoC in the past too, but this is for the first time that the government has made it public," Jaishankar said this to the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs in October 2016, Khera wrote on X with 'CC' to Tharoor.
In an earlier post, Khera posted a picture of 'officers of 4 Sikh Regiment posing outside a captured Pakistani police station in Burki, Lahore District'.
Tagging Tharoor in this post too, Khera said, 'this image is from the Battle of Burki (also known as the Battle of Lahore, 1965), a significant engagement during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965…'
In another post – tagging Tharoor again – Thera shared the remarks by former prime minister Manmohan Singh in an interview to The Hindustan Times, saying 'multiple surgical strikes took place during our tenure too. For us, military operations were meant for strategic deterrence and giving a befitting reply to anti-India forces than to be used for vote garnering exercises'.
These posts on X were reposted by Congress communications head Jairam Ramesh.
The Congress-vs-Tharoor row comes days after the party expressed displeasure at the government picking the name of Tharoor, among others, for its seven multi-party delegations for its global outreach post-Operation Sindoor. Even before he was picked to lead one of the delegations, Tharoor's public pronouncements in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor had also drawn the ire of the Congress.
A CWC member Tharoor and an MP from Kerala, Tharoor has of late y been taking a separate line from the party, mostly on foreign policy issues.
Before Khera, another Congress leader Udit Raj reacted to Tharoor'sremarks and even called him the 'super spokesperson" of the BJP.
'Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is the super spokesperson of the BJP, and what the BJP leaders are not saying, speaking in favour of PM Modi and the government, Shashi Tharoor is doing... Does he (Shashi Tharoor) even know what the earlier governments used to do? ... They (the Central government) are taking credit for the Indian Armed Forces. Shashi Tharoor has become the spokesperson for the publicity stunts of the BJP,' saidUdit Raj, who is a former BJP MP. Raj also posted his comments on X.