Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is currently touring Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as head of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. The committee is focused on studying three matters, Indo-Pak relations, Sino-Indian relations, and the functioning of passport offices and Passport Seva Kendras.
However, Tharoor is facing backlash from the party after calling the situation in Jammu and Kashmir as progressing towards normalcy.
“In Srinagar! Had the honour of an excellent meeting with Lieutenant-Governor Shri Manoj Sinha at Lok Bhavan today. We discussed the situation in the state and the encouraging progress towards normalcy. When I arrived, he was chatting to the President of the Kashmiri Writers’ Association and the Women’s Organisation – a positive outreach that I welcomed. Many challenges remain and much remains to be done, but I left the meeting feeling more positives than I have felt for a while,” Tharoor wrote on X.
The backlash was swift, sharp, and came from within. Tharoor’s Srinagar visit and his meeting with Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha set off a firestorm inside the Congress.
Congress chief spokesperson in J&K, Ravinder Sharma, lashed out at the post, saying Tharoor should have spared time to meet the people of the Kashmir Valley to understand the ground reality.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Congress. The party has consistently accused the BJP of downgrading J&K from a state to a Union Territory and failing to restore normalcy. Tharoor’s acknowledgement of encouraging progress directly counters to the official party stance.
“The irony is hard to miss. While Congress continues to attack the Centre’s Kashmir policy, ground data paints a different picture. Stone-pelting has virtually ended since the abrogation of Article 370. Official figures show not a single Kashmiri youth has joined terror ranks in the last 18 months,” said BJP Spokesperson Abhijeet Jasrotia.
Further the J&K Congress unit criticized tharoor for not meeting the unit despite meeting with LG Manoj Sinha.
