Tharoor said his invitation stems from protocol extended to the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, while the absence of Gandhi and Kharge has raised questions within the Opposition.
BY PC Bureau
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor will attend the State dinner hosted for Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, but Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi have not been invited, seniCongress spurces said.
Tharoor — whose frequent praises of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and pointed critiques of his own party have fuelled speculation of an imminent political shift — confirmed his presence at the dinner. He said the invitation was extended as a courtesy to the chair of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs.
When asked why the heads of the Opposition, including Kharge and Gandhi, had not been accorded the same courtesy, Tharoor said he had “no knowledge of how State dinner invitations are decided.”
The conspicuous omission comes barely a day after Rahul Gandhi accused the government of actively discouraging foreign leaders from meeting Opposition figures. Speaking outside Parliament, Gandhi said that tradition — including under former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee — dictated that visiting heads of state meet the Leader of the Opposition. “But now… the government signals that such meetings should not take place,” he said.
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Tharoor appeared to endorse Gandhi’s criticism, noting, “The Leader of the Opposition has made his point. The government should clarify its position.”
Despite this momentary alignment, the deepening rift between Tharoor and the Congress leadership remains unresolved. Over the past six months, Tharoor has repeatedly drawn the party’s ire — first for his public praise of Modi’s handling of the Pahalgam terror attack and retaliatory strikes on Pakistan, and later for an article titled Indian Politics Are a Family Business, widely seen as an indictment of dynastic parties, including the Congress.
Tharoor has denied rumours of a switch to the BJP, saying his comments have been misinterpreted. “It is not a sign of my leaping to join his party,” he said earlier this year.
The tensions date back to 2022, when Tharoor joined a group of Congress leaders demanding structural reforms after successive electoral defeats, including the party’s devastating loss in the 2019 general election. The trust deficit from that moment has only grown — and Friday’s State dinner appears to have widened it further.
