Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee on Thursday accepted Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor’s explanation on his tweet about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Addressing the media, KPCC President Mullappally Ramachandran said that the party was satisfied with Tharoor’s response and asked leaders to not air their views on the issue anymore. Tharoor responded that he was relieved that the KPCC had accepted his explanation on the tweet.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP courted controversy last week after he came out in support of another Congress leader Jairam Ramesh who tweeted that there was no point in ‘demonising Modi’. Tharoor had endorsed Jairam Ramesh's tweet stating that if Modi was praised when necessary, then it would add more credibility when the opposition criticises him.
Shortly after his tweet, senior congress leaders TN Pratapan, K Muraleedharan and even opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala condemned Tharoor’s remark. TN Prathapan even wrote a letter to interim Party president Sonia Gandhi stating that giving a good certificate to BJP will only weaken Congress’ fight to regain India.
Following this KPCC demanded an explanation from Tharoor.
In a strongly worded response to Mullappally Ramachandra, Tharoor urges his critics to look at the national scenario and come up with a strategy to get back to being a winning party.
Tharoor also asked the Congress in Kerala to point to leader in the country who had taken the effort to challenge the BJP government in parliament as much as he had done. “(I have) opposed the Modi government on every bill their sought to introduce against the spirit of the constitution,” Tharoor added in his response to KPCC.
Explaining his tweet Tharoor wrote, "It is an argument for the Congress, for whom Jairam, Singhvi and I are all strong voices, to enhance its credibility with fair-minded voters who abandoned us for the BJP but can be won back again. Modi has done little worth praising. But he has been effective in raising his vote percentage across India from 31% in 2014 to 37% in 2019, and as a party which stayed at around 19% in both elections, we in the Congress need to make an effort to understand why. Clearly enough, voters thought he was delivering something for them -- we need to acknowledge that, but point out its limitations: yes, he built toilets, but 60% of them don't have running water; yes, he gave poor rural women gas cylinders, but 92% of them can't afford refills. But if we act as if he has done nothing, however flawed, and people still voted for him, then we are saying that people are stupid, which is not a position that wins you votes.”
He also added in a tweet that he had been, for 6 years, arguing that Modi must be praised whenever he says or does something right as it will add credibility to the criticism against him.
“I am more than slightly mystified to be seen by some of my own party men as some sort of BJP-inclined Modi sympathiser and to be asked for an "explanation" for "praising" someone I have not praised," Tharoor concluded.