Thiruvananthapuram: Congress leaders in the state on Monday slammed Congress spokesperson Sashi Tharoor MP for his remarks praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 'Clean India' campaign and accepting the invite to join it.
Talking to reporters here, KPCC vice-president M.M. Hassan said Shashi Tharoor should refrain from those kinds of remarks praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“"It's not just the Oct 2nd incident. Tharoor has been praising Modi to the hilt for some time now. Many Congressmen have still not understood what Modi has done to be praised so much. Tharoor could have avoided those kinds of remarks praising of Modi. Actor Kamal Haassan even had given a cautious response to Modi's 'Swachh Bharat' invite,” he said.
Congress leaders like M. Subrahmanyan and M. Liju also took strong exception to the ‘hail Modi’ line of Tharoor.
Senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar had attacked Tharoor for his effusive praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling his party colleague "immature" and a "chameleon".
Meanwhile, Shashi Tharoor has made it clear that his acceptance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call to support the "Swachh Bharat Mission" does not imply that he endorses BJP's "core Hindutva" agenda and he remains a "proud Congressman."
"I am astonished that anyone would suggest that I am pro-BJP. I have a 30-year paper trail of published writings on my idea of India and my profound belief in India's pluralism," Tharoor said in a comment on social networking website Facebook.
"Being receptive to specific statements or actions of BJP leaders does not remotely imply acceptance of the party's core Hindutva agenda. The PM pitched his appeal as a non-political one and I received it in that spirit. I am a proud Congressman and a proud Indian. In short, not pro-BJP, just pro-India," he said.
Tharoor had given a positive response to Modi's invitation to join the ambitious "Swachh Bharat" campaign but wanted it to be a sustained programme instead of "tokenism".
Responding to Modi's call, Tharoor had last week said he was honoured to accept the invitation to join the Clean India campaign.
Tharoor, who praised Modi on a couple of occasions earlier, however, said that he was not a fan of tokenism and the challenge would be to sustain it beyond a week of photo opportunity.