Shashi Tharoor Declines 'Veer Savarkar Award' With A Jibe At Organisers

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has been nominated for an award named after Veer Savarkar, in what risked turning into another flashpoint between the Thiruvananthapuram MP and his party. Tharoor, however, declined the honour, citing the lack of clarification about the nature of the award and the organization conferring it.

"I am not going," he replied when asked about his participation, before clarifying his stand in an online post.

"In the absence of clarifications about the nature of the award, the organization presenting it or any other contextual details, the question of my attending the event today or accepting the award does not arise," the MP later added.

The Veer Savarkar International Impact Award 2025 is instituted by the NGO High Range Rural Development Society (HRDS), with Tharoor named as its inaugural recipient.

The award will be inaugurated by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at NDMC Convention Hall in New Delhi today, honouring individuals and outfits that have worked for a change in national development, social reform, and humanitarian outreach.

Tharoor said he came to know about the award from media reports yesterday when he was in Kerala. Asked by the local media, he said he was neither aware of the award nor had accepted it.

I have come to know from media reports that I have been named a recipient of the "Veer Savarkar Award," which is to be presented today in Delhi.

I only learned about this announcement yesterday in Kerala, where I had gone to vote in the local self-government elections.

There in…

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) December 10, 2025

Criticising organisers for not checking with him before making it public that he is a recipient, he asserted, "It was irresponsible on the part of the organisers to announce my name without my having agreed to receive it."

"Despite that, today in Delhi, some media outlets continue to ask the same question," his post read, even as his party colleagues believed no Congress member would accept an award in the name of Veer Savarkar.

K Muraleedharan, a Congress veteran from his home state of Kerala, said receiving the award would insult and embarrass the Congress. The BJP and the extended right wing consider Vinayak Damodar 'Veer' Savarkar as a revolutionary icon, but the Congress questions his contribution to the freedom struggle.

While Tharoor did not comment on Savarkar's persona, his refusal to accept an honour named after him perhaps reflects the red line that he wouldn't cross yet despite his differences with the workings of the Congress.

Tharoor had recently been in the news over his remarks seen as critical of the Congress, including schooling those who cause disruptions in parliament. He, however, remains a member of the grand old party.

"I went to great trouble to get elected. It would take a considerable amount of thought and various other considerations to be anything else," he recently told NDTV when he was asked if a switch is on the cards.