New Delhi:
Union Minister Shashi Tharoor today disapproved of Wharton Business School cancelling its invitation to Narendra Modi, saying the institution had a duty to hear him after inviting the Gujarat Chief Minister.
"I disagree profoundly with Mr Modi at every level but I think it is far better to debate his record and views rather than to try and suppress his voice by disinviting him. Once they had invited him, they had a duty to hear his point of view," Mr Tharoor, who is also the Minister of State for Human Resource and Development, told NDTV.
He said that the hosts should have asked from Mr Modi questions including the uncomfortable ones and should have challenged some issues in arguments. "That is what makes for a stimulating debate. On an university campus, that is what the entire process should be all about," he said.
The minister said that he was invited to deliver the keynote address dew weeks ago but declined it due to his Parliamentary commitments and suggested that Wharton approach someone else.
"Perhaps that is why they went to a Chief Minister, I don't know," Mr Tharoor told NDTV, recalling that he had addressed Wharton India Economic Forum four years back and since then was being invited for the same every year but could not go.
Mr Tharoor said that perhaps Wharton cancelled it as they felt that they cannot cope with the "trouble" and the "controversy" surrounding the invitation to Mr Modi. "I do not think that it was a considered decision and I suspect that they are regretting both their decisions to invite Mr Modi as also their decision to disinvite him," he said.
"My own feeling is that they just did not want the bother. They got so much of heat. They said...we cannot cope with this trouble. Let us get ourselves out of it," he said.
Mr Tharoor said he agreed with Wall Street Journal columnist and writer Sadanand Dhume, who also decided not to speak at the Forum as he disapproved of the organisers' decision to disinvite Mr Modi.