Shashi Tharoor Acknowledges Analysis of Ideological Divide Within Congress Party

New Delhi:

An X user's detailed analysis of the 'ideological showdown' between Rahul Gandhi-led Congress and Shashi Tharoor prompted a brief response from the Thiruvananthapuram MP on Sunday evening. The user, Civitas Sameer, framed the discord as a 'contrast between two ideological tendencies' and criticized the opposition party for its 'inability to choose, integrate, or execute either, coherently'.

Shashi Tharoor, who recently made headlines after missing a third consecutive major party meeting, replied: "Thank you for this thoughtful analysis. There has always been more than one tendency in the party; your framing is fair, and reflective of a certain perception of the current reality."

The X user simply responded, "Damn!"

The analysis centered on the party's 'devastating post 2010-shift... to a rural grievance-driven mass party' in response to the electorally dominant Bharatiya Janata Party, contrasted with Tharoor's 'broad alignment with a 1990s' era urban-facing, institutionally oriented, and reform-compatible Congress'.

"This orientation emerged during economic transition and elite-led governance, not as virtue, but as a historical circumstance... like PV Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh (as Union Finance Minister), SM Krishna, and Montek Singh Ahluwalia operated within this framework. Their politics relied on policy, institutions, and administrative competence, not mass mobilisation or cultural embedding."

"It is these very same urban technocratic leaders that the Congress repeatedly sidelines, again and again," the X user declared, "All of these aforementioned leaders gained more recognition and respect from the RW (i.e., the right wing) than the party... in today's Congress era."

Many interpreted these references as pointing to high-profile ex-Congress leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia, who defected to the BJP in 2020, subsequently bringing down the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh.

Scindia and others such as former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot have been viewed by Congress critics as representing a younger generation being marginalized by the old guard.

Following his move to the BJP, Scindia served as Union Aviation Minister for three years before being appointed as Union Communications Minister in June last year in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third government.

The X user then compared the political trajectories of 'urban technocratic leaders repeatedly sidelined by the Congress' with the party's post-2010 tactical shift.

"The most ironic part of it all is that the individual leading this rural turn (i.e., Rahul Gandhi) is among the most elite and insulated figures in Indian politics. Born into a dynastic family, (his) symbolic rural politics without lived or organisational depth lacks any credibility."

"Rural politics in India is not rhetorical. It is organisational, cultural, and long-term. BJP succeeds here because of cadre depth, discipline, and cultural alignment through the RSS. Congress has none of this infrastructure, and yet wants to behave like a poor man's messiah."

"The Congress today is neither a credible urban reformist party nor a serious rural mass party. It has abandoned one without successfully transforming... as a result, its identity is now primarily oppositional (and) not aspirational. For a national party, this is fatal..."

The analysis also suggested that Tharoor's alleged 'rightward shift' - which his Congress critics have claimed based on recent comments praising Prime Minister Modi - is non-existent. According to the posts, the four-time Lok Sabha MP remains 'a proud Hindu from day one for his own reasons'.

"Like the urban technocratic leaders of the past, he is being sidelined by this new Congress."