Shashi Tharoor Misses Third Consecutive Congress Parliamentary Meeting Amid Growing Internal Tensions

New Delhi:

Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has now missed three consecutive meetings of Congress parliamentarians, raising eyebrows within the party.

The senior Congress leader, who has recently faced internal criticism for seemingly praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, was notably absent from Friday's gathering of Congress Lok Sabha MPs led by Rahul Gandhi.

During this meeting, the Opposition Leader in Lok Sabha gathered the party's 99 MPs to evaluate their parliamentary performance and strategize their opposition to the BJP before the winter session concludes on December 19.

Tharoor's absence was explained on his X (formerly Twitter) timeline, where he cited attending private commitments in Kolkata - his longtime aide John Koshy's wedding and his sister Smita Tharoor's birthday celebration.

Chandigarh representative Manish Tiwari was also not present at the Friday meeting.

This marks Tharoor's third consecutive absence from crucial party meetings. In November, he missed a strategy session chaired by Sonia Gandhi, later explaining he was on a flight from Kerala. His office confirmed that travel arrangements with his 90-year-old mother made attendance impossible. Senior leader KC Venugopal was also absent on that occasion.

On November 18, Tharoor skipped another significant meeting focused on the party's opposition to the Special Intensive Revision voter re-verification exercise. That discussion was jointly led by Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge. Tharoor attributed his absence to health issues.

A day before that meeting, Tharoor had attended a private event featuring Prime Minister Modi, and his subsequent X post praising the PM's speech sparked controversy within Congress ranks. Party spokespersons Supriya Shrinate and Sandeep Dikshit publicly criticized Tharoor's comments, with Dikshit even suggesting Tharoor should leave Congress if he found the Prime Minister so impressive - a suggestion Tharoor has repeatedly dismissed.

In response to the criticism, Tharoor advocated for practical cooperation across political ideologies in India's federal structure, where central and state governments are often led by opposing parties with different development visions.

Sources indicate that Tharoor's last party meeting attendance was in October, during a six-hour strategy session of the Congress' Kerala unit focusing on preparations for next year's Assembly election. That meeting included Gandhi, Kharge, and Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

In today's meeting led by Rahul Gandhi, the Opposition Leader offered encouragement to fellow lawmakers, reiterating his claims that coordinated opposition by himself and his sister Priyanka had unsettled the BJP leadership, particularly Home Minister Amit Shah.

"Amit Shahji was very nervous... He used the wrong language, his hands were trembling... he is under tremendous mental pressure. Everybody saw this yesterday," Gandhi asserted.

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