New Delhi: Amid rumours of his rift within the Congress, MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday posted a selfie with union commerce minister Piyush Goyal and Britain's secretary of state for business and trade, Jonathan Reynolds. Taking to X, he said, "Good to exchange words with Jonathan Reynolds, Britain’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade, in the company of his Indian counterpart, Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal. The long-stalled FTA negotiations have been revived, which is most welcome.”
Recently, Shashi Tharoor reportedly received flak from within the party apparently for praising the Kerala Left Democratic Front (LDF) government's industrial policy. Giving further speculation, Shashi Tharoor's cryptic post on X. "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," he wrote on Saturday.
On Sunday, Tharoor said that if his leadership was not required, he had other options as well. “If the party wants to use that, I will be there for the party. If not, I have my own things to do. You should not think that I have no other option. I have my books, speeches, invitations from across the world to give a talk,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying.
However, on reports that all is not well between him and the Congress following backlash from within the party, Shashi Tharoor on Sunday refused to comment further on the subject.
"No comments at all," said the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram as reporters accosted him at the New Delhi airport today. Tharoor meanwhile urged the mediapersons to "Go watch the match; it's an important match today."
He also said that he was elected as MP four times from Thiruvananthapuram and that if the Congress did not need his services, he had "other options" including speaking tours and books.
Assembly elections in Kerala is scheduled for 2026 and Tharoor claimed in the interview published in the newspaper today that opinion polls from independent agencies indicated he was "ahead of others in leadership stakes in Kerala."
Earlier, his article in an English daily over praise for the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government's handling of Kerala's economy had drawn criticism from fellow Congress leaders in the State.
Tharoor had subsequently clarified that his article did not seek to survey the entire Kerala economy, which "remains in dire straits." He said that he wrote about a specific subject: the changed industrial climate as evidenced by the start-up ecosystem alone.