In a passionate response to the letter issued by KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran seeking explanation over his remarks on Narendra Modi, Shashi Tharoor said on Wednesday that no leader from Kerala has opposed the prime minister and his policies in the last session of Parliament just like he had done.
“There’s no leader in the Congress party from our state who had made ten per cent of the effort which I had put to study, research, anticipate and oppose the Modi Government on every bill they sought to introduce against the spirit of the Constitution and values of the Congress party,” Tharoor said.
Tharoor’s statement assumes significance in the wake of the ongoing war of words between him and senior Congress leaders from the state after he said Modi needs be praised for the right things he had done.
In his explanation, Tharoor said: “I intervened more than 50 times in Parliament and spoke against 17 Bills. Can any of my critics in Kerala say they’ve done so? Who on earth can credibly accuse me of a ‘volte-face’ from the stand I took when I sat alongside you in the last Lok Sabha?” Referring to his book The Paradoxical Prime Minister, Tharoor said he had used the power of the pen to write the most comprehensive and most successful critique of Modi Government’s first term.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said the outcry follows hysterical reactions to distorted reporting of a tweet supporting statements of Jairam Ramesh and Abhishekh Singhvi. He also mentioned in the letter that Modi has done very little worth praising, but that he has been effective in raising the votes garnered from 31 per cent in 2014 to 37 per cent in 2019
Tharoor said thousands of ordinary Congress workers, karyakartas and volunteers from Kerala had stood by him as they knew his intentions are noble. Tharoor added that his critics should look at the national picture and try to revamp the strategies to become a winning party again. He said he had been a staunch and constructive critic of the Modi Government and that his strong defence of inclusive values had won him three elections.