Facing intense criticism from the party and his colleagues, senior Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is leading one of the seven all-party delegations India dispatched to over 30 partner countries to expose Pakistan support to terrorism and amplify Operation Sindoor message, has clarified his remarks that 2016 surgical strike was the first time India breached the LoC and the International Border.

Tharoor stated that he was only speaking about the retaliation to terrorist attacks and not previous wars and that his remarks were about previous Indian responses to such attacks, which were both “restrained and constrained”.

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“For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC: in the past 1. I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars; & 2. My remarks were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone, during which previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB,” the Congress MP from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram said in a post on X.

He further dismissed the criticism from Congress leaders, especially from Udit Raj, saying that his critics and trolls are welcome to distort his views, but he has “better things to do.”

Although Tharoor has recently been irking and embarrassing the Congress leadership due to some of his statements that appeared supportive of the Modi government and its policies, his latest remark in Panama, claiming that the 2016 surgical strike was the first time India had crossed the Line of Control (LoC), has also prompted a response from Pawan Khera, the party’s head of media and publicity department and a close aide of Rahul Gandhi.

Khera had shared multiple news reports, including an interview of Manmohan Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s statement before a Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs in 2016, as well as excerpts from Tharoor’s own book, to prove his point that 2016 was not the first time India conducted air strikes across the LoC.

“Professionally done, target-specific, limited-calibre counter-terrorist operations have been carried out across the LoC in the past too, but this is for the first time that the government has made it public,” Jaishankar said this to the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs in October 2016. CC: @ShashiTharoor,” Khera wrote on X.

In another post, Khera shared a screenshot of what appeared to be a page from Shashi Tharoor’s book – ‘The Paradoxical Prime Minister’ and said: “I agree with that Dr @ShashiTharoor who wrote about surgical strikes in his book in 2018…”

Apart from Khera, Congress leader Udit Raj called him a “super spokesperson of the BJP” who has surpassed even BJP leaders in pleasing Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“My dear @ShashiTharoor Alas ! I could prevail upon PM Modi to declare you as super spokesperson of BJP , even declaring as foreign minister before landing in India . How could you denigrate the golden history of Congress by saying that before PM Modi , India never crossed LOC and the International border? In 1965 Indian Army entered Pakistan at multiple points, which completely surprised the Pakistanis in the Lahore sector. In 1971 , India tore Pakistan in two pieces and during UPA Govt several surgical strikes were unleashed but drum beating was not done to encash politically. How could you be so dishonest to the party that gave you so much?” he said.