Manickam Tagore criticises Shashi Tharoor for echoing BJP views on the Emergency, intensifying internal Congress rifts. Tharoor’s remarks draw fresh backlash from party leaders.
Congress leader Manickam Tagore on Thursday took a sharp swipe at his own party colleague Shashi Tharoor, saying that when a colleague starts repeating BJP lines word for word, “you wonder — is the bird becoming a parrot?”
Tagore, who is the Congress whip in the Lok Sabha, made the apparent dig at Tharoor over his article on 50 years of the Emergency.
He took to X and wrote, “When a colleague starts repeating BJP lines word for word, you begin to wonder is the bird becoming a parrot?”
“Mimicry is cute in birds, not in politics,” Tagore added, without naming Tharoor.
His remarks came after Tharoor, in an opinion piece published by Project Syndicate, argued that the Emergency should not be remembered solely as a dark chapter in India’s history, but that its complexities and lessons must be fully understood.
In his article, Tharoor recalled the excesses during the Emergency imposed by then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from 25 June 1975 to 21 March 1977. He pointed out that measures intended to bring discipline often descended into brutality.
“Sanjay Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi, led forced sterilisation campaigns, which became a notorious example of this. In poor rural areas, violence and coercion were used to meet arbitrary targets. In cities like New Delhi, slums were mercilessly demolished and cleared. Thousands of people were rendered homeless. Their welfare was not taken into consideration,” Tharoor wrote.
This is not the first time that Tharoor has faced flak from his own party members.
His recent remarks on the India-Pakistan conflict and New Delhi’s diplomatic approach have drawn attention for not aligning with the party’s official line.
Last month, Tharoor faced backlash from party leaders for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi after leading an all-party delegation to five countries as part of a global outreach programme to expose Pakistan and explain India’s stance following the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor.
Tharoor was also corrected by his own party leaders after stating that India had carried out surgical strikes for the first time after 2014.
On June 25, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that Tharoor is in the CWC because “he has very good English,” and added that for some, “Narendra Modi comes first.”
Tharoor later shared a cryptic post saying, “Don’t ask permission to fly. The wings are yours and the sky belongs to no one.”
His bird post has now become a ‘bird analogy’ sparring match within the party.
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