What Could Be Shashi Tharoor’s Political Endgame?
New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government may have just got its best spokesperson in Congress leader and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor to speak on Operation Sindoor.
His briefing at the Indian consulate in New York, where he is leading one of India's multi-party delegations, and then in Guyana and Panama, stood out for its eloquence, detail and lucidity, and could easily qualify as the best presentation by an Indian politician to justify India’s military action in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.
What, however, has raised many eyebrows is the way the Thiruvananthapuram MP has strayed away from his own party’s rather critical stance on how events unfolded over the last month.
While Tharoor has uncritically supported the Modi government’s so-called “new doctrine” to handle terrorism, the Congress has also raised critical concerns around the intelligence failure and lack of security in Pahalgam while offering support to India’s military action.
This isn’t the first time Tharoor has presented a view different from the Congress. He had earlier praised Modi’s leadership in organising the G20 summit, his “vaccine diplomacy” during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the way the prime minister handled trade negotiations with US President Donald Trump – all these at a time when the Congress took severely critical stances against the BJP-led Union government.
Similarly, he jumped to praise the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led government in Kerala for some of its supposed “pro-business” policies, and admitted to committing a mistake in criticising the Modi government for not condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
However, in the period following the recent India-Pakistan conflict, Tharoor hasn’t merely deflected from the Congress’s more critical line, but has made himself appear to be entirely in the BJP’s camp. He has since justified his position as being consistent that concerns of national security should be dealt with a non-negotiable bipartisanship.
For the Congress, which has also raised other pertinent questions around the Pahalgam attack, Tharoor’s unequivocal support to the Modi government has caused much embarrassment to the party’s leadership.
This has led to a pernicious battle within the Congress. Congress leaders like Udit Raj and Pawan Khera have taken digs at Tharoor, with Raj calling the Thiruvananthapuram MP the BJP’s “super spokesperson”.
Hardly a person to take criticism lying down, Tharoor provided an explanation for his speeches abroad, but also addressed his critics as “zealots”.
After a long and successful day in Panama, i have to wind up at midnightvhere with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don’t really have time for this — but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC: in tge…
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 29, 2025
Tharoor was never known to be a loyalist in the Congress. He was a part of the rebel G-23 group, then went on to field himself against the official Gandhi family's candidate Mallikarjun Kharge in the Congress’s presidential polls, and then kept speaking his mind even when the Congress needed someone of his stature to articulate party positions.
His independence even while serving as Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram for the third successive time has made him popular across a cross-section of the electorate. A large number of traditional Left voters in Kerala like him; he is the most acceptable face among a huge number of BJP supporters in Kerala and the rest of India; and a great majority of non-partisan voters across India love him for his non-dogmatism and fearlessness in speaking his mind.
However, a number of political watchers now believe that he has taken his “independence” too far, especially at a time when the Congress is looking to send across a firm message of organisational revival. Questions like ‘can he join the BJP’ have started to fly. But what could be his political endgame?
Varghese K. George, resident editor of The Hindu’s national bureau says, “What his future options could be remain hazy. But he surely is burning the bridge with the Congress. At this point, it appears that he doesn’t really mind what the Congress leadership thinks of him and what impact his actions can have in the future.”
That Tharoor has had a long list of grievances with the Congress is fairly well-known. It is also well-acknowledged that the Congress leadership has hardly tried to address his concerns. If anything, it has only made Tharoor’s road in the party more difficult.
For instance, around the time the Modi government had almost finalised Tharoor’s name to lead a multi-party delegation, given his unequivocal support to it in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, the Congress went ahead to exclude his name from the list of MPs who could represent the party in the delegations. It nominated Anand Sharma, Gaurav Gogoi, Syed Naseer Hussain, and Amrinder Singh Raja Warring for the delegations, but not Tharoor.
In the end, Tharoor prevailed as the Congress leadership let him lead a delegation, given his huge popularity.
Again, last month, when Tharoor’s popularity, according to several surveys, as a probable chief ministerial candidate among Congress supporters was almost at an all-time high, the Congress leadership decided to appoint the little-known Peravoor MLA Sunny Joseph as president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee and Attingal MP Adoor Prakash as convenor of the United Democratic Front (UDF).
The leadership changes were long awaited, and although the new leadership appears to have a fairly representative character, Tharoor's sidelining was too conspicuous to go unnoticed.
The Congress in Kerala has always opposed Tharoor, given the fact that he was seen as a leader who was paradropped and did not work his way to the top. Then, leaders like the Congress’s national organisational secretary K.C. Venugopal or many Kerala Congress leaders like V.D. Satheesan or Ramesh Chennithala have been united in keeping Tharoor away in spite of their personal rivalries in the state unit.
Kerala-based senior journalist and columnist M.G. Radhakrishnan believes that by appealing to a large cross-section of voters and deflecting from the party’s official political line, Tharoor may be forcing the Congress’s hand to project him as chief minister.
With practically no organisational support, Tharoor’s last resort could be stoking popular opinion rather than anything else, especially in a scenario where the Congress is in a desperate need for a win in Kerala.
“I think he is eyeing the chief minister’s position in Kerala. The Congress can’t afford to lose for the third successive time. There is no other party leader who is as popular in Kerala as Tharoor. He has a greater chance than everybody else,” Radhakrishnan says.
Radhakrishnan also says it is highly unlikely that Tharoor may join the BJP, given his lifelong opposition to Hindutva and fundamentalisms of every kind. However, with him making his interest clear for the top job in Kerala at a time when his popularity has been rising may nudge UDF allies to throw their weight behind Tharoor.
Tharoor may look isolated in the Congress at the moment, but if allies like the Indian Union Muslim League decide to support him, the Congress may have to take a tough decision.
“Unlike the Congress, which can still remain the chief opposition after another loss, allies like the Muslim League and others can’t afford to sit in the opposition for the third time in a row,” Radhakrishnan says.
“How the Muslim League behaves in the upcoming Nilambur by-election will be interesting,” he adds.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) registered a second consecutive win in the last assembly elections in Kerala, which is known for changing governments in every election. A significant factor that worked in favour of the LDF was the switch of a sizable section of Muslim voters to it from the UDF.
The Muslim League, a UDF ally, has been insecure about such a switch among its traditional voters since then.
Infighting within the Congress, the lack of a decisive leadership and the BJP making inroads in the UDF’s traditional voter base have only made matters worse for the alliance.
Only a win in the next assembly elections can rescue the Congress-led UDF against such a backdrop. But will the Congress, which has only been happy scoring points against Tharoor instead of accommodating him and his views within its traditionally all-encompassing secular nationalist ideology, take on this challenge? That is a million dollar question at the moment.
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