Congress MP Shashi Tharoor did not attend the meeting of Lok Sabha Congress MPs convened by Rahul Gandhi on Friday. Party insiders stated that Tharoor had already informed the leadership about his inability to participate. Chandigarh MP and senior Congress leader Manish Tiwari was also missing from the discussion.
Tharoor’s social media posts indicated that he was in Kolkata on Thursday night to speak at an event organised by the Prabha Khaitan Foundation.
Rahul Gandhi, serving as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, chaired the meeting, interacted with the party MPs, and gathered their feedback on recent parliamentary developments. According to party sources, Gandhi remarked during the meeting that the government appeared to be ‘under pressure’ from the opposition on issues such as the Vande Mataram debate and electoral reforms.
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This marks the third occasion on which Tharoor has remained absent from an important party meeting. Earlier, on December 1, the Thiruvananthapuram MP clarified that he had not deliberately avoided the Congress strategic group gathering held a day earlier. He explained that he was on a flight returning from Kerala when the meeting took place.
When questioned about the matter, Tharoor said, “I did not skip it; I was on a plane, coming from Kerala.”
His absence from a recent strategy discussion chaired by Sonia Gandhi, ahead of the Parliament’s winter session, drew significant attention—particularly because he had also missed the earlier meeting on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) issue, citing health concerns.
According to his office, he was travelling with his 90-year-old mother on a later flight from Kerala, which made it impossible for him to reach Delhi in time. Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal was also unable to attend the meeting owing to his commitments related to local body election campaigning in Kerala.
Tharoor’s repeated absence from crucial party deliberations has increasingly become a subject of discussion within Congress circles.
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