After Shashi Tharoor’s ‘zealots’ jab, Congress says ‘he’s very much part of the family but…’

The Thiruvananthapuram MP reportedly stated in Panama that India breached the LoC for the first time during the 2016 surgical strike

The Congress party on Thursday dialled down its criticism of senior party leader Shashi Tharoor hours after the Thiruvananthapuram MP defended his Line of Control (LoC) comment in a firm post on social media platform X.

Attempting to pacify the situation, Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala said there is no acrimony among leaders of the party.

"Shashi Tharoor is a senior Congress leader and very much part of the Congress family. However, what he said about the surgical strike was factually incorrect," Surjewala was quoted as saying by PTI.

Responding to a question over war of words between some of the party leaders and Tharoor, Surjewala stated, “The Congress party only corrected the record by pointing out that the surgical strike on Pakistan and also at other places on the den of terrorists were regularly executed during Congress-led UPA government to give a befitting reply to terrorists by our armed forces and the then Congress Government.”

His statement comes as Tharoor -- who is leading an all-party delegation to partner countries to highlight India's zero tolerance to terror and Operation Sindoor -- faces criticism from party colleagues over his recent remarks on surgical strikes. The Thiruvananthapuram MP reportedly stated in Panama that India breached the LoC for the first time during the 2016 surgical strike.

Several Congress leaders, including media and publicity department head Pawan Khera and party leader Udit Raj, have slammed him for not mentioning surgical strikes against Pakistan during the UPA government in his presentations abroad.

Udit Raj said Tharoor should be made a "super spokesperson of the BJP".

Khera, meanwhile, shared a screenshot from Tharoor's book in which he criticised the Modi government for allegedly exploiting the 2016 surgical strikes politically.

“The shameless exploitation of the 2016 'surgical strikes'... as a party election tool --something the Congress had never done—marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require discretion and non-partisanship,” Tharoor wrote in his book.

An apparently infuriated Tharoor also put out a lengthy post on X.

“After a long and successful day in Panama, I have to wind up at midnight here with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don't really have time for this -- but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC in the past - 1. I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars. 2. My remarks were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone, during which previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB," Tharoor wrote, while responding to the criticism.