Tharoor raises Congress leadership's eyebrows, once again
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Srinagar: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has once again put his party in a fix by making 'positive' remarks about the situation in Jammu & Kashmir and by implication about the efforts the BJP-led Central government constantly claims to have been making to bring the state to normalcy after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in August 2019.
Tharoor made his comments in social media platform 'X' after attending the 'Nalanda Dialogues' and meeting the Union Terriroty's Lieutenant General Manoj Sinha.
Tharoor also noted, "When I arrived, he was chatting to the president of the Kashmiri Writers' Association and the Women's Organisation - a positive outreach that I welcomed. Many challenges remain and much remains to be done, but I left the meeting feeling more positives than I have felt for a while".
This is not the first time that the senior Congress leader, and fourth-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram has sparked a controversy. Earlier he had caused many a Congress leader to raise his eyebrow by making positive comments about the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This time it was his turn to remark that he and the LG "discussed the situation in the state and the encouraging progress towards normalcy".
His remarks about J&K came when the Congress has not yet accepted in principle the abrogation of Kashmir's special status, and is highly critical of not even making J-K a full-fledged state and of keeping the huge military force in the state.
Congress Party leaders were quick to retort to Tharoor's observation that things were moving towards normalcy, a comment quite in contradiction with the party's stand that is highly critical of the BJP's and the central government's contentions.
These remarks received a sharp criticism from the Congress state chief spokesperson who said, "People of Kashmir too were expecting you to meet them to have a better understanding of the ground realities. At least could've spared sometime to meet own partymen fighting for statehood snatched from us 7 years ago."
In another instance of embarrassment of his party earlier, the writer-UN diplomat turned politician had been slammed by the party for his "admiration for Narendra Modi, saying it appears to have transcended the physical world as he now seems capable of hearing what the prime minister even said.
For his part, Tharoor, known for keeping above party politics to an extent that Indian political parties would hardly bear with, said that he found it extraordinary that a statement about protecting Indian civilian sailors was given a partisan twist. This came when Congress party, especially its Lok Sabha leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, and party spokesman Jairam Ramesh were all blame for Narendra Modi for not responding strongly to America on the death of three sailors by the US attacks on the ship in Strait of Hormuz.
The BJP, however has been putting a different spin to the situation in J&K saying that ever since Article 370 was repealed, the era of stone-throwing had ended in the state. Party spokesman Abhijeet Jasrotia claimed that in the last 18 months not a single youth had joined extremist party.
What the BJP spokesman, and his party in general glossed over is the criticism about the J&K situation with a heavy penetration of security forces there and the widespread suppression of people's rights which human rights activists and exponents of media freedom constantly cite. The Central government through its representative, the Lt General holds the law and machinery under its control in Jammu & Kashmir rather than than that of the elected non-BJP government led by Omar Abdullah.