Shashi Tharoor clarifies as BJP slams him over op-ed: 'Interpolated by editors'
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday issued a clarification amid a row over him allegedly using the term “Indian-administered Kashmir” in one of his columns written for a Bangladeshi daily.
Tharoor asserted that he never used such a term in any of his writings or statements. He also attributed the usage to the editors of The Daily Star, where his syndicated column was published.Â
“I do not agree with that usage and have never used such a term in any of my writings or statements anywhere, ever. It has been interpolated by the editors of the newspaper that my syndicated column appeared in. I disavow such language unequivocally, but have no control over what foreign newspaper editors do,” Tharoor said in a post on X.
Clarification by Shashi Tharoor came after BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and shared a screenshot of the contentious opinion piece written by the Congress leader.
Amit Malviya accused Shashi Tharoor of using the term as a “dog whistle” to appeal to those advocating for Kashmir’s integration with Pakistan.
“Tharoor, a former high ranking UN official, surely knows that there is only one Kashmir, the other being under illegal occupation of Pakistan. But this coinage is a dog whistle to those who have been advocating for Kashmir to be handed over to Pakistan, namely radicalised Muslims,” Malviya said.
“India’s territorial integrity be damned, as long as it helps the Congress consolidate its vote bank. Who knows they may be silently telling the ‘Azadi Gang’ that the Congress will also bring back Article 370,” he added.
The portion of the column titled ‘Might Modi Lose?’, written by Shashi Tharoor read: “And there is a good chance that will happen. After all, in 2019, the BJP got a major boost from a terrorist attack on a military convoy in ‘Indian-administered Kashmir’, which was carried out just a couple of months before the vote by the Pakistan-based group Jaish-e-Mohammed. With no such event galvanising Indian voters today, the BJP cannot hope to replicate its performance for the last election”.
BJP spokesperson RP Singh too slammed the Congress over Shashi Tharoor’s column and asked whether the party was paying back to Pakistan over its former minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain’s repeated praises for Rahul Gandhi.Â
Recently, Hussain praised Rahul Gandhi over Congress’s poll promise of conducting a wealth redistribution survey if the party comes to power in the Lok Sabha elections. The Pakistani leader also compared Rahul Gandhi with his great-grandfather and India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and said “both were socialists”.Â