'Spoke in favour of govt': Why Congress benched Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari during Operation Sindoor debate

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Congress MPs Manish Tewari and Shashi Tharoor during a meeting in New Delhi on June 10. (File: PTI)

No Congress MP who represented the country as part of the Centre's global outreach on Operation Sindoor through multi-party delegations have been included in the party's list od speakers to address the Parliament during the ongoing debate on Operation Sindoor.

Those dropped from the list include Thiruvanathapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari and Fatehgarh Sahib MP Amar Singh. While former union ministers Anand Sharma and Salman Khurshid were also part of the delegations, they are not currently members of the Parliament.

A report in The Indian Express quoted a Congress MP as saying that the party picked new MPs to speak in Parliament during the discussion as the delegations that represented India abroad "spoke in favour of the government".

"Now, it is time to voice the concerns of the Opposition and people of India, and hence, the party has picked new people to speak in the House," the MP was quoted as saying.

The Congress party, however, was critical of the Centre's outreach programme to 33 nations from the get go, particularly in view of its choice of Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor, who had not seen eye to eye with the party on a number of issues, as a member of one of India's delegations abroad.

The Congress also took exception to Tharoor's reference to the surgical strikes by the Indian Army following the terror attack on an Army camp in Uri. It had also taken exception to Tharoor repeatedly praising Operation Sindoor, India's military response to the Pahalgam terror attack that left 26 civilians dead.

Other Congress leaders including Salman Khurshid and Manish Tewari -- both astute public speakers -- have also come in for criticism over their defence of the uniform official stand taken by the government at multiple forums over its stand on Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and its measured and its non-escalatory response.

The Congress, apparently apprehensive of its leaders ending up putting up a more articulate defence of the government's stand than many on the Treasury benches, decided to bench leaders part of the Centre's multi-party delegation.

The list of Congress speakers in the Parliament includes Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Ludhiana MP Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Lok Sabha Whip Manickam Tagore, deputy floor leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi, Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda, Solapur MP Praniti Shinde, Koraput MP Saptagiri Ulaka and Jhunjhunu MP Brijendra Singh Ola.