New Delhi: The Congress Friday questioned its MP Shashi Tharoor’s acceptance of an invite to the state banquet organised for Russian President Vladimir Putin, even as Leaders of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, were not extended the same courtesy.
Tharoor, who has been at odds with the Congress high command over various issues in recent months, told reporters that he assumed he received the invite because he serves as the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs and that he would definitely attend.
He announced his decision even as the Congress issued a statement noting that Rahul and Kharge had not been invited to the dinner at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
“There has been speculation whether the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha have been invited for tonight’s official dinner in honour of President Putin. The two LoPs have not been invited,” Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh wrote on X.
Tharoor, however, said that while it had once been established practice to invite chairpersons of the external affairs committee to such events hosted for visiting foreign dignitaries, the practice had been discontinued in recent years.
“It has been resumed. I have been invited, yes. I will definitely go,” he said.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP had earlier said that the government should respond to Rahul’s allegation, made Thursday, that visiting dignitaries were being discouraged from meeting the Leaders of Opposition. Rahul had claimed that the government was acting out of insecurity.
On Friday, Tharoor said he was not aware of the criteria the government used in issuing invitations.
“I don’t know the basis of the invitation. This is all done by the government, by protocol, by Rashtrapati Bhavan. What do I know? All I can say is that I am honoured to have been invited,” he said, in a further sign of the widening rift between him and the Congress.
Responding to questions about Tharoor’s decision, Congress leader Pawan Khera suggested that the Centre was playing a game by inviting Tharoor instead of Rahul and Kharge. He added that Tharoor should not have been part of it.
“Ask Mr Tharoor. All of us who are in the party, if our leaders do not get invited and we get invited, we need to question our own conscience and listen to our conscience. Politics has been played in inviting or not inviting people, which in itself is questionable, and those who accept such an invite are also questionable. We would have listened to our voice of conscience,” he said.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)