Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has once again sparked controversy within the Congress after praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Ramnath Goenka Lecture in a post on X, prompting party leaders to question his allegiance and ask why he remains in the Congress if he believes someone going against the party’s policies is doing good for the country.
His remarks on Tuesday drew strong reactions from party leaders, who questioned why he remained in the Congress if he found the Prime Minister’s ideas worthy of admiration.
In his post, Tharoor wrote that Modi’s address functioned both as an economic outlook and a cultural call to action, urging the nation to remain “restless for progress.” He highlighted the Prime Minister’s description of India not only as an “emerging market” but as an “emerging model” for the world, praising the country’s economic resilience.
Tharoor added that Modi invoked Macaulay’s legacy of “slave mentality” and called for a decade-long mission to restore pride in India’s heritage, languages and knowledge systems.
He expressed that he was glad to have attended the lecture, despite suffering from a severe cold and cough.
The Congress leadership reacted sharply, with Senior leader Sandeep Dikshit questioning Tharoor’s loyalty to the party, asking why he remained in the Congress if he believed that Prime Minister Modi was pursuing a better path for the country than the party he belonged to.
“Shashi Tharoor’s problem is that I don’t think he knows a lot about the country… If, according to you, someone is doing good for the country by going against the Congress’s policies, then you should follow those policies… Why are you in Congress? Is it only because you are an MP?” he asked.
Dikshit accused him of “hypocrisy” for refusing to explain his praise.
“If you really feel that the BJP or PM Modi’s strategies are working better than the party you are in, then you should give an explanation. If you are not giving one, you are a hypocrite,” Dikshit pointed out.
Another leader, Supriya Shrinate, said she found nothing “praiseworthy” in the Prime Minister’s lecture and contrasted her view with Tharoor’s enthusiastic appreciation.
“I didn’t find anything in the speech worth appreciating., It was a petty speech. He [Modi] criticised Congress there too. The PM thinks of Congress day and night, He was at an event of a newspaper. He should tell us what his problem is with fair journalism… I don’t know how he found one,” the party’s national spokesperson and social media head said.
“Mr Tharoor is praising PM Modi for what? … He has a habit of praising the government,” Udit Raj, Congress senior leader and former MP, said, highlighting Tharoor’s pattern of “crossing lines,” linking it to past instances like Pahalgam support.
Trinamool Congress MP and former cricketer Kirti Azad asked on X, “Since when have you become so gullible to the ‘Faku in chief’ (Chief liar), @ShashiTharoor? Since when have you started believing in ‘Mungeri Lal Ke Haseen Sapne’?”
The latest dispute comes shortly after Tharoor publicly defended BJP veteran L.K. Advani against criticism linked to the 1990s Rath Yatra, a move that had already caused discomfort in Congress circles.
Questions about Tharoor’s political loyalty have only intensified since the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir.
His vocal support for the Modi government’s response to the attack, which included leading an all-party delegation abroad, positioned him as someone prioritising “national interest” over party strategy. This stance prompted internal rebukes and fuelled speculation about his future within the Congress.
The strain grew in November 2025 when Tharoor was excluded from the Congress’s speaking slots in the Lok Sabha on issues related to Pahalgam and Operation Sindoor.
He reportedly refused the party’s directive to attack the BJP during the debate, choosing instead to observe silence.
His relationship with the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, already uneasy since his entry into politics in 2009, deteriorated sharply after the attack. KPCC leader K. Muraleedharan publicly barred him from local events, saying that Tharoor needed to decide “which party he belongs to.”
Tharoor’s disagreements with the Congress leadership were not limited to national security or foreign affairs.
He supported the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision in Bihar, calling it “essential,” even as the party criticised the process.
He also contradicted Rahul Gandhi’s remark that the “Indian economy is dead,” arguing instead that the economy was “resilient and growing.”
In a published article, Tharoor criticised dynastic politics as a “grave threat to democracy,” a comment widely seen as a direct challenge to the Nehru-Gandhi family. He expanded this criticism to parties such as the Samajwadi Party and the National Conference, arguing that dynastic leadership had undermined democratic principles across the political spectrum.
Tharoor’s latest praise of the Prime Minister has therefore landed in a political context already marked by deep distrust, frustration and speculation about his future within the Congress. His repeated divergence from the party line, coupled with his increasingly vocal admiration for certain positions of the BJP leadership, has raised fresh questions about internal coherence within the Congress and whether he still fits within its ideological boundaries.
Several social media users also criticised Shashi Tharoor over his praise for the Prime Minister.
Lawyer Swati K., posting from the handle @mynameswatik, called the situation ironic, writing, “The man who never gave a press conference and strangulated press freedom in this country is giving gyan in his Ramnath Goenka Lecture. What an irony. And the so-called progressive man who once fought for the UN Secretary-General seat seems to bow down to a shameless fascist for his vested interests, at the cost of millions who believed he would fight the fascist.”
Others reminded Tharoor of his own past writings on Modi, pointing out that he authored the book “The Paradoxical Prime Minister: Narendra Modi and His India,” a work that had once been read as a sharp critique of the Prime Minister.
The post “Why are you in Congress?” Shashi Tharoor sparks fresh row after praising PM Modi’s Ramnath Goenka Lecture appeared first on Maktoob media.
