Congress drops Tharoor as spokesman
Source: The Sangai Express / Agencies
New Delhi, October 13 2014:
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has been dropped as party spokesperson on the charge that he has praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi once too often.
Party president Sonia Gandhi has reportedly agreed with the leaders who allege that Tharoor has embarrassed and hurt the party with his "adulation of PM Modi" in his columns on ndtv.com and
other media.
"As a loyal worker of the Congress, I accept the decision of the party president," Shashi Tharoor said.
Taking a tough stand, the Congress telegraphed that it would brook no deviation from the party line on PM Modi and his BJP, which swept to power in May after dislodging the UPA.
The Kerala Congress had told the party leadership that there were repeated instances of the 58-year-old MP being seen as appreciative of the Prime Minister.
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The two-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram incensed his party by saying he was "honoured" to be featured among nine prominent Indians tagged by the Prime Minister when he launched his five-year Clean India campaign on Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary.
Tharoor said in his statement, "While I would have welcomed an opportunity to respond to (the complaint) and draw the attention of the AICC leadership to the full range of my statements and writings on contemporary political issues, I am now treating this matter as closed and have no further comment to make" .
A Congress publication in Kerala recently tore into Tharoor for writing "love songs" for PM Modi and compared him to "Siberian migratory birds who come looking for optimum climate" .
Tharoor has repeatedly responded to his critics by asserting that he was "not pro-BJP, just pro-India" .
The former Union Minister has upset his party before with words of praise for Mr Modi.
The Congress had distanced itself from his comments describing the 64-year-old as "Modi 2.0" after the new Government took charge.
The action against Mr Tharoor comes at a time questions connected to the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar at her hotel room in January have resurfaced.
The Delhi police are yet to pinpoint how she died; a team of doctors from AIIMS has said the 52-year-old died of poisoning, and not from an overdose of Alprax anti-depressant pills.