Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday apologized "unconditionally" after he landed in yet another controversy over the India map. This time, the Thiruvanathapuram MP's manifesto for congress presidential polls had a map that omitted parts of J&K and Ladakh.
Soon after the manifesto was circulated, BJP leader Amit Malviya took to Twitter to attack the "wannabe Congress President" and pointed out the map. Not just political leaders, but Twitteratis too attacked the Congress leader's office and claimed that the leader is being "divisive".
Tharoor, clarifying the row, said, "no one does such things on purpose" and added that team of volunteers had committed a mistake. "Re the troll storm on a manifesto map: No one does such things on purpose. A small team of volunteers made a mistake. We rectified it immediately and I apologise unconditionally for the error," the Congress MP said in a tweet.
It is also to be mentioned that after the scathing attacks, Tharoor's office rushed to do damage control. A corrected manifesto was posted again, with the right Indian map.
Tharoor's past controversies
This isn't the first time that Tharoor has been involved in a map-related controversy.
In 2019, the leader shared the cover of a booklet about the Kerala Congress's protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and used the same distorted map - without parts of Ladakh and J&K. The map was deleted after his mistake was used by the BJP to launch attacks on the Congress.
BJP leader Amit Malviya tweeted of this incident too on Friday.
Shashi Tharoor, who filed his nomination papers for the top post at the AICC headquarters in Delhi earlier today, called for re-imagining the organisational culture in the party to decentralise authority and truly empower the grassroots office-bearers of the party.
He argued that delegating powers to state leaders and empowering grassroots workers will not only free the new leader from the onerous burdens of over-administration but also help create the strong state leadership that in past eras strengthened the Congress' national appeal.
Tharoor said he took the decision to contest as it will strengthen the Congress and he has several ideas to reform and re-energise the party after the recent electoral setbacks such as decentralising authority within it, increasing consultative mechanisms and giving 'karyakartas' more access to the leadership at all levels.
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