New Delhi: While Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge prepare to challenge the government over Operation Sindoor in parliament next week, Congress MPs like Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari appear more aligned with the official narrative—underscoring the party’s ongoing struggle to speak with one voice.

The prime minister and his senior team members are expected to put up a strong defence on behalf of the government.

Clearly, the Congress cannot ask Tharoor or Tewari – each is an elected MP of the Lok Sabha on the party's ticket – to represent their party, individually or jointly, in the debate on the four day conflict with Pakistan.

Far from reflecting their party's stance, both Tharoor and Tiwari – as supremely articulate public speakers – would likely mount a better defence of Op Sindoor than what Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministerial colleagues Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, or, for that matter, S. Jaishankar are capable of.

Doesn't that sound bizarre? Day after day, Congress leaders Gandhi and Kharge are asking uncomfortable questions to the government about the Pahalgam terror attack, Op Sindoor and its aftermath: where are the perpetrators of the terrible massacre on April 22? What action has the government taken on the colossal failure of the intelligence that led to the ghastly terrorist strike in Pahalgam? Why did the government intimate Pakistan in advance just before it launched the military strike on per-determined targets in the enemy country, as Jaishankar suggested? What is the truth behind the reports of Indian fighter jets going down in the four-day war? Why does the government speak in innuendos? Why is it that US President Trump has been repeating that he brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan on May 10 – he has said it some 26 times in the last two and a half months – and Pakistan has endorsed it but India has been insisting that the cessation of hostilities didn’t entail any third-party intervention? Is the government hiding anything?

See the contrast: Gandhi and Kharge – top Congress leaders – are virtually snapping at the heels of Modi day after day but Congress MPs Tharoor and Tiwari are using every available platform – the mainstream legacy media, both print and television, seminars as well as discussion circuits – burnishing the credentials of the prime minister as an astute leader in enunciating the post-Pahalgam narrative leading to Operation Sindoor and its aftermath.

That’s why I was not surprised when I listened to Tewari in a seminar on Operation Sindoor at the India International Centre (IIC) on July 24. It was a panel discussion titled "The Media, Operation Sindoor and India’s Diplomatic Outreach", organised by the Media Foundation in collaboration with the IIC.

It turned out to be a fierce debate with sharply polarised viewpoints; it veritably gave a foretaste of the kind of war of words that would be on display on the floor of Parliament next week.

Two opposite points of views were powerfully presented by four panelists: Praveen Swami and C Raja Mohan raised hard-hitting questions on the government’s conduct; Vivek Katju and Manish Tewari sought to stoutly defend the government. Bharat Bhushan, the moderator, with his searching questions to the panelists, didn’t leave anyone in doubt which group he commiserated with: he clearly was an unambiguous critic of the establishment point of view.

Praveen Swami was, as expected, on fire right from the outset; he opened the debate accusing the Indian media, both print and television, of abdicating its responsibility and playing into the hands of the government in publicising downright falsehoods about Operation Sindoor.

I didn’t expect Raja Mohan to take a strident position against the government, given his columns in the Indian Express that largely buttress the government of India’s point of view in the strategic affairs. But he was quite forthright in critiquing the so-called Modi Doctrine that shrinks the options of a sovereign country and gives the lever of power of determining India’s response to Pakistani terrorists. He pooh-poohed India’s obstinacy in not talking to Pakistan and not acknowledging the US mediation in Indo-Pak conflict.

On the other side, Vivek Katju, the veteran diplomat, stuck to his view that Operation Sindoor was the appropriate kinetic response as the patience of the country was running thin as regards the terrorist attacks by Pakistan. He wholeheartedly supported the idea of all-party delegation to take the message of Pakistan’s complicity to the world capitals.

Tewari was the last speaker; he chose to sidestep the questions posed by the moderator about the Congress party’s internal dynamics on its reaction to Sindoor – how MPs like him were out of sync with the party leadership on this issue. As everyone had expected, he reiterated his stand that he was ready to break bread with the government in the war against terror; that he would not indulge in partisan politics when the country was facing danger from an external enemy.

Tewari hailed the all-party delegations to the world capitals – he was a member of one such delegation –as a stupendous success in carrying the message of India’s unity and resolve to fight the Pakistani terror.

After the end of the discussion, the questions flew thick and fast. Tewari faced a barrage.

I had a poser for Tewari: The success of the multi-party delegations have only been talked about by the members who went on a government-funded luxury trip. Nobody in those countries have echoed similar sentiments. In fact, going by what Walter Ladwig – a British academic who attended the briefing by the MPs delegation at a think tank in London – wrote in an op-ed and in a series of tweets, the visiting team had to deal with some embarrassing moments.

The delegation, headed by Ravi Shankar Prasad, was apparently asked: India wants the world to condemn Pakistan for killing innocent civilians; why didn’t India condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (which had also led to the killing of civilians)?  India rightly condemned Hamas, but why has India not opened its lips against Israel, which has killed tens of thousands of women and children and has driven hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the brink of starvation? The Indian delegation was speechless. What did Tewari have to say about that?

Tewari's answer astounded me: One British man might have an axe to grind and presented a false narrative, he said. He then went on to defend the Modi government, saying that India has spoken against the killings of innocent Ukrainians and Palestinians by Russia and Israel.

Then Tewari went on to ask: “Anyway, why should we bother about such people’s comments? Where were those British when China forcibly occupied our territory five years ago? Why were they silent then?”

Swami interjected: “When did our Prime Minister, or for that matter our government, say that China had occupied our territory after that spat in Ladakh? Isn’t it that we gave China a clean chit?”

It was indeed an interesting debate. I will keenly look forward to see how Operation Sindoor determines the political trajectories of Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.

N.R. Mohanty is a senior journalist.

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