Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor is enjoying his moment in the sun, even as he dances between the red lines of party discipline with interviews and television sound bytes that sound suspiciously like the Narendra Modi government’s position on Operation Sindoor and its aftermath.
He has reason to be pleased with himself. Apart from the publicity he has managed to garner in recent weeks, putting him almost on par with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, he is currently one-up over his party in their ongoing battle of nerves.
A Delegation Drama That Embarrassed Congress
The Congress backed off from a confrontation after the Modi government cherry-picked him against its wishes to lead an all-party delegation to the United States and other countries to plead India’s case on the war against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.
The Congress did not include him in the list of four nominees sought by the government for this international outreach. But when the composition of the delegations was officially announced, the party was stunned to find that three of the four names it had suggested were replaced by government choices—Tharoor, Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari, and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid.
The Congress blinked, deciding to play safe rather than risk further exposure of internal schisms. In a late-night tweet, media cell head Jairam Ramesh declared that his party did not want to politicise the matter, and urged the leaders to listen to their conscience.
Clearly, it feared that Tharoor in particular would push the envelope through open defiance. It was also worried of being dubbed anti-national by not joining the government’s public relations effort with the global community.
Tharoor rubbed it in with a gleeful tweet, crowing that he was "honoured" to lead an all-party delegation to five key capitals to present "our nation’s point of view on recent events."
An Uneasy Truce Until 2026?
Those familiar with the schizophrenic nature of Tharoor’s relationship with the Congress say that this kind of brinkmanship is likely to continue till the Assembly elections in Kerala, due in the first half of 2026.
Unless one side decides to bring matters to a head and push for a formal break, Tharoor and the Congress will duel and spar, but wait for the outcome of the polls before the final thrust.
At the moment, the Congress does not want to rock the boat in Kerala. It believes it is poised to shake off its losing streak and win the state election, riding a wave of an anti-incumbency sentiment against two-term CPI(M) Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The last thing it needs in the run-up to the polls is trouble in its ranks. After all, Tharoor is a four-term MP from Thiruvanthapuram and presumably has enough political credit in the bank to put a spoke in the Congress wheel as a troublesome dissident.
Neither Here Nor There
At the same time, if the Congress fears the fallout of a messy divorce with Tharoor, the latter too is hesitant to snap ties completely with the party that gave him his political break after he left the United Nations in 2007.
His dilemma is twofold. One is the bipolar nature of politics of his state. The Congress and the Left dominate the landscape, and there has never been room for a third force. The Left is hardly likely to welcome a leader who hasn’t been indoctrinated in Marxist dogma, should Tharoor ever knock at its doors.
His other problem is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is not even a bit player in Kerala. If Tharoor belonged to Karnataka, Telangana, or Andhra Pradesh, he could have taken a chance with the BJP. But in Kerala, it’s a risky proposition.
Although he has been openly flirting with Modi and BJP leaders, he is obviously unsure of the benefits of jumping ship from the Congress.
Would the BJP give him a Rajya Sabha membership? Would Modi make him a Cabinet minister? Tharoor will know the answers to those questions only after he takes the plunge.
CM Dreams, Delhi Nightmares
Tharoor’s frustration with the Congress stems from his long-running feud with top party leaders in Kerala, the most powerful of whom is Rahul Gandhi’s right-hand man, KC Venugopal.
Tharoor is no longer content being a four-term MP. He has set his sights on leading the Congress in the 2026 polls as its chief ministerial face. However, the Kerala clique led by Venugopal has blocked him at every step as he lobbied for more political space in the state.
The unkindest cut of all was his marginalisation in Parliament. Despite his obvious talent for public speaking, debating skills, grasp of diplomatic affairs and knowledge of the Constitution, he has not been allowed to participate in any major debate in the Lok Sabha.
He was finally permitted to open the discussion on the Finance Bill in the last Budget session, but only after he virtually threatened to revolt through a series of interviews over the past many months.
Although the Kerala clique has been pushing for Tharoor’s expulsion, both Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge are reluctant to take the fight to the finish at the moment. They have neither rebuked the recalcitrant MP nor ticked off his rivals.
Tharoor’s future in the Congress hangs by a slender thread, then. Till the Kerala polls are done and dusted, the cat-and-mouse games will continue, giving the media plenty to chew on.
(Arati R Jerath is a Delhi-based senior journalist. She tweets @AratiJ. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)