- Shashi Tharoor will attend the State dinner for Russian President Putin on Friday night
- Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge were not invited to the State dinner, party sources said
- Tharoor cited his role as Foreign Affairs Committee head for receiving the invitation
Shashi Tharoor will attend Friday night's State dinner in honour of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge will not, party sources told NDTV this evening.
Congress MP Tharoor - whose relationship with his party has deteriorated over the past six months, fuelled by speculation of a seismic switch to the BJP - confirmed his participation this evening; he said his invitation reflected the courtesy offered to the head of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
However, on neither Rahul Gandhi nor Mallikarjun Kharge, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the President of the country's largest opposition party, being offered a similar courtesy, Tharoor professed himself 'unaware of the process followed for invitations (to State dinners)'.
Later in the evening another Congress leader, Pawan Khera, took a swipe at Tharoor, though he did not name him; "It is quite surprising an invitation was sent and accepted also. Everyone's conscience has a voice. When my leaders aren't invited... but I am... we should understand why the game is being played, who is playing the game, and why we shouldn't be part of it..."
The apparent snubbing of Gandhi and Kharge comes a day after the former accused the government of discouraging meetings between visiting heads of state and opposition leaders.
Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, he said tradition, including that followed by the BJP government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, dictated visiting heads of state met with the Leader of the Opposition. "But these days... government suggests foreign leaders don't meet..."
READ | Ahead Of Putin's India Trip, Rahul Gandhi's "Insecurity" Jab At Centre
Tharoor seemed to back Gandhi on that grouse; "... the LoP has made his point. I think the government should respond," he said. In response, government sources said no such 'suggestion' was made
That moment of support, though, is not likely to smooth over the Tharoor-Congress stand-off.
The four-time Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP is seen as being on thin ice with the Congress after a number of recent comments praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. These include remarks about his handling of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and the consequent military strikes on Pakistan.
READ | Tharoor's "Ideological Purity" Comeback To PM Speech Post Criticism
Also, earlier this month, in an article titled 'Indian Politics Are a Family Business', he offered a strong critique of family-led parties, like the Congress, and that did not go down well.
READ | "You Know What Happened To Me": BJP Leader's Warning For Tharoor
In June, as tension with the Congress grew, Tharoor said, "It (praise for the Prime Minister) is not a sign of my leaping to join his party... as some people have, unfortunately, been implying..."
READ | "Not Leaping To Join BJP": Shashi Tharoor's Message Amid Speculation
In reality, the rift between MP and party has been growing steadily since mid-2022, when he was part of a group of Congress leaders that wrote to then-boss Sonia Gandhi asking for a change in leadership after a series of electoral defeats, starting with a drubbing in the 2019 federal election.
But when NDTV asked him in June how he might define his relationship with the Congress today, he pointed out he had been loyal to the party and its ideology for 16 years.
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