NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday questioned whether the Congress would now target senior leader Salman Khurshid for what it called “speaking an inconvenient truth” after party leader Shashi Tharoor faced backlash from within the grand-old party for supporting the Centre over Operation Sindoor stance.BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, in a post on X, pointed to Khurshid’s remarks during the ongoing multi-party MPs delegation tour, saying they signaled cross-party support for the government’s actions in Jammu & Kashmir and a firm stand on India’s sovereignty.“Mr Khurshid’s stance reflects bipartisan support for the Centre’s actions in Jammu & Kashmir, underscoring a broader sense of national unity against cross-border terrorism and a strong reaffirmation of India’s territorial integrity,” Malviya said.“Will the Congress now turn on him for speaking an inconvenient truth, just as they did with Shashi Tharoor? Or is Tharoor being punished simply for daring to challenge the Gandhi camp’s chosen candidate for Congress President?” he asked.Former external affairs minister Khurshid, who is in one of the 7 all-party delegations to expose Pakistan post Pahalgam terror attack, said that prosperity and normalcy have returned to Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370.“Kashmir had a major problem for a long time. Much of that was reflected in the thinking of the government in an article called Article 370 of the Constitution, which somehow gave the impression that it was separate from the rest of the country. But Article 370 was abrogated and it was finally put to an end,” Khurshid said while addressing the Indonesian think tanks and academia.“Subsequently, there was an election with 65% participation in the election. There’s an elected government in Kashmir today, and therefore, for people who want to undo everything that has happened, the prosperity that has come to Kashmir,” he added.This comes after Tharoor faced criticism from party colleagues over his recent remarks on surgical strikes.Tharoor, currently leading a multi-party delegation to countries including Panama and the US, had said that India conducted its first cross-border surgical strike in 2016, a claim seen by many in the party as undermining similar operations during the UPA era.Facing flak from Congress leaders such as Pawan Khera and Udit Raj, Tharoor defended himself in a strongly worded post on X from Panama City, clarifying that his remarks specifically referred to responses to terrorist attacks, not to prior wars or conflicts.“After a long and successful day in Panama, I have to wind up at midnight here with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don’t really have time for this — but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC: in the past,” Tharoor said in a post on X.“I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars and 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,” he added.Tharoor’s “India breached the LoC for the first time during the 2016 surgical strike” remark prompted a sharp response from his party colleague Udit Raj, who accused Tharoor of denigrating Congress’s legacy. “How could you denigrate the golden history of Congress by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed the LoC and the International border?” Raj questioned.He went so far as to suggest Tharoor be made a “super spokesperson of the BJP.”Pawan Khera also weighed in, posting a screenshot from Tharoor’s book, where the MP had previously criticised the Modi government for politicising the 2016 strikes while acknowledging that the Congress had authorised several such operations in the past without publicising them. NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday questioned whether the Congress would now target senior leader Salman Khurshid for what it called “speaking an inconvenient truth” after party leader Shashi Tharoor faced backlash from within the grand-old party for the Centre over Operation Sindoor stance.BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya, in a post on X, pointed to Khurshid’s remarks during the ongoing multi-party MPs delegation tour, saying they signaled cross-party support for the government’s actions in Jammu & Kashmir and a firm stand on India’s sovereignty.“Mr Khurshid’s stance reflects bipartisan support for the Centre’s actions in Jammu & Kashmir, underscoring a broader sense of national unity against cross-border terrorism and a strong reaffirmation of India’s territorial integrity,” Malviya said.“Will the Congress now turn on him for speaking an inconvenient truth, just as they did with Shashi Tharoor? Or is Tharoor being punished simply for daring to challenge the Gandhi camp’s chosen candidate for Congress President?” he asked.Former external affairs minister Khurshid, who is in one of the 7 all-party delegations to expose Pakistan post Pahalgam terror attack, said that prosperity and normalcy have returned to Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370.“Kashmir had a major problem for a long time. Much of that was reflected in the thinking of the government in an article called Article 370 of the Constitution, which somehow gave the impression that it was separate from the rest of the country. But Article 370 was abrogated and it was finally put to an end,” Khurshid said while addressing the Indonesian think tanks and academia.“Subsequently, there was an election with 65% participation in the election. There’s an elected government in Kashmir today, and therefore, for people who want to undo everything that has happened, the prosperity that has come to Kashmir,” he added.This comes after Tharoor faced criticism from party colleagues over his recent remarks on surgical strikes.Tharoor, currently leading a multi-party delegation to countries including Panama and the US, had said that India conducted its first cross-border surgical strike in 2016, a claim seen by many in the party as undermining similar operations during the UPA era.Facing flak from Congress leaders such as Pawan Khera and Udit Raj, Tharoor defended himself in a strongly worded post on X from Panama City, clarifying that his remarks specifically referred to responses to terrorist attacks, not to prior wars or conflicts.“After a long and successful day in Panama, I have to wind up at midnight here with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don’t really have time for this — but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC: in the past,” Tharoor said in a post on X.“I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars and 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,” he added.Tharoor’s “India breached the LoC for the first time during the 2016 surgical strike” remark prompted a sharp response from his party colleague Udit Raj, who accused Tharoor of denigrating Congress’s legacy. “How could you denigrate the golden history of Congress by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed the LoC and the International border?” Raj questioned.He went so far as to suggest Tharoor be made a “super spokesperson of the BJP.”Pawan Khera also weighed in, posting a screenshot from Tharoor’s book, where the MP had previously criticised the Modi government for politicising the 2016 strikes while acknowledging that the Congress had authorised several such operations in the past without publicising them.
