"We Are Moving Together, On Same Page": Shashi Tharoor Meets Rahul Gandhi

Shashi Tharoor – whose relationship with the Congress is on thin ice after a series of comments seen as praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and who has had to swat rumours of a shock switch to the BJP – had a 90-minute meeting with party boss Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi in Parliament House Thursday morning.

"We had a very good, constructive, positive discussion. All is good, and we are moving together on the same page..." Tharoor told reporters after the meet.

The meeting also followed Tharoor skipping a number of top-level Congress meets, including those in which strategy was discussed for the election this year in his home state of Kerala.

Sources told NDTV Tharoor sought time to meet with Kharge and Gandhi to express his views and concerns, and that party would try to address those grievances before the election.

Tharoor's ties with the Congress seemed to deteriorate sharply after the Pahalgam terror attack in April last year. The four-time Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram spoke glowingly of the Prime Minister's handling of the crisis, inviting sharp retorts from Congress leaders, many of whom made jibes about Tharoor angling for an invitation to join the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The relationship took an apparent turn for the worse after the BJP invited Tharoor – and he accepted the invitation – to lead a cross-party delegations to brief friendly countries about the attack and India's response. No other Congress leader was extended an invitation.

And ties seemed to soured further over the next few months, including two instances in November. The first when Tharoor attended a private event at which the Prime Minister was speaking and then posted on X, "… the address served as an economic outlook and a cultural call to action, urging the nation to be restless for progress…" The Congress' Supriya Shrinate and Sandeep Dikshit hit back, rubbishing the speech and questioning Tharoor's comments.

"Even a neutral post by me on a speech by the PM has been attacked as praising him. But I didn't say a single word of praise," a befuddled Tharoor responded, "I just described the speech…"

The second instance in November was an article titled 'Indian Politics Are a Family Business' – a critique of family-led parties like the Congress – which did not go down well with the party.

On that occasion the BJP pounced with sneers at the Congress and the 'first family', a jab at the Gandhi clan that remains hugely influential in the party's daily affairs, despite not being its boss.

Tharoor has always maintained his comments reflect only the desire to better serve India.

In June last year he 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. It is a statement of national unity..."

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 election defeats, starting with a drubbing in the 2019 federal poll.

That group – G-23 – eventually fizzled out, though not forcing an election for the Congress President post. Tharoor contested that election but lost to Gandhi loyalist Mallikarjun Kharge.

And when NDTV asked him in June 2025 how he would define his relationship with the Congress today, he pointed out he had been loyal to the party and its ideology for 16 years.