Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 29: The Congress may be further alienating two of its senior leaders, Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari, by keeping them out of the list of the party speakers participating in the debate in Parliament on the Pahalgam terror attack and India’s response to Pakistan through “Operation Sindoor.”
The Operation Sindoor debate in Parliament began on Monday with the Congress party feeling confident. They believed they had two issues to silence the government on. Firstly, Trump’s claim that he brokered a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Secondly, the whereabouts of the Pahalgam terrorists.
The Congress wanted to highlight these issues and silence the ‘dissenters,’ specifically party MPs Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari. Both were part of the multi-party delegation for the Narendra Modi government’s outreach programme after Operation Sindoor.
However, they irked their party by being chosen as representatives by the government. They were not Congress’s official choices, leading to a distancing of the Congress from these two. It was not evident at first that Congress did not want them to speak on the Operation Sindoor debate. Most of the delegation members, like DMK MP Kanimozhi, NCP-SP MP Supriya Sule, and BJP MP Tejaswi Surya, did speak. However, Tewari and Tharoor did not.
Sources close to Tharoor said he was asked to speak at the last minute. He conveyed that, as the party whip was applicable to him, he would be expected to criticise the government. However, having defended Operation Sindoor globally and personally believing it was successful, Tharoor opted out.
Manish Tewari sent a mail to Congress expressing his desire to speak but received no response. A day later, he posted cryptically on X, quoting Manoj Kumar’s famous movie, saying, “Bharat ka rehne waala hun, Bharat ki baat sunaata hun (I’m an Indian, I tell the story of India),” implying that the nation was more important than the party.
Both Tharoor and Manish do not wish to openly confront their party and will remain silent for now. However, their discontent is evident. Their supporters argue that, being astute politicians, they would have spoken like Indians, without necessarily embarrassing their party. The issue was that Congress lacked confidence in them. This led to their silencing.
Ironically, Congress lost a major talking point just at the start of the debate with the security forces killing three terrorists on Monday and the government claiming to have conclusive evidence to establish that the deceased were the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack and that all the three were Pakistani nationals.
The Defence Minister Rajnath Singh attempted to partially answer the opposition criticism as to why the government called for military halt when it was claiming to take over Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) sooner or later. Addressing the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, Mr Singh expressed hopes that the people of PoK would return and would accept that they were Indians.
The Defence Minister also said India’s ‘Operation Sindoor’ was a clear message to Pakistan and the world that India would go to any extent to eliminate terrorism. He also reaffirmed the government’s commitment to national security, while lauding the precision and coordination of India’s armed forces.
“The people of PoK will return, a day will come when they will say that we are Indians,” Singh said. “India’s ‘Operation Sindoor’ was not an act of provocation, but one of self-defence,” Singh said. “We struck nine terror camps, including those operated by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen. No Pakistani civilian was harmed. Our targets were precise and our message was clear,” the Defence Minister said.
He revealed that Pakistan had attempted to attack Indian military and civilian targets using missiles and drones, but failed to cause any damage. “We thwarted every attempt. Not a single Indian installation was hit,” Singh added.
Also speaking on ‘Operation Mahadev’ in Srinagar, Singh said actionable intelligence led to the elimination of three terrorists involved in the April 22 Pahalgam attack. “Our forces neutralised the perpetrators. We do what we say,” he declared firmly.
He emphasised that the Opposition should unite in acknowledging the valour of Indian soldiers. “Not a single soldier was martyred. The entire country should take pride in the professionalism of our armed forces,” the Defence Minister said.
Calling the strike a turning point in India’s security doctrine, Singh said, “‘Operation Sindoor’ was redefining India’s global image. We will not allow our soil to bleed. The people of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir will one day say ‘Yes, we are Indians’.” He reiterated India’s commitment to peace but warned, “We gave our forces full freedom, and we will continue to do so. From land to sea, we are prepared to give a befitting reply to any aggression.”