Tharoor on star campaigner list for bypoll: Congress rebuts ‘no invite' claim
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Sunny Joseph on Friday said Shashi Tharoor was on the party's list of star campaigners for the Nilambur bypoll. Joseph's response came after the Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor said that he wasn't invited for the campaign.'We had officially published the list and submitted it to the Election Commission. It included Shashi Tharoor's name. He was abroad most of the time, and then in Delhi. I don't know if he even came to Kerala,' Sunny Joseph said. 'I have nothing more to say about this,' he added.advertisement'All other leaders came and cooperated in the election, except AK Antony,' he said, naming senior leaders like Ramesh Chennithala and Kodikunnil Suresh who joined the bypoll campaign for their candidate Aryadan Shoukath.
Joseph's remarks came a day after the four-time Thiruvananthapuram MP told reporters that the party never asked him to join the Nilambur campaign. 'I wasn't invited by the party. But that's alright,' Tharoor said, adding that he had been on an official diplomatic tour abroad during most of the campaign period.He said there was no urgency shown by the leadership after he returned either. 'When I came back there was no insistence, no missed call from the leadership saying I should come,' he added with a smile.Tharoor, on Thursday, again downplayed the speculation of a rift with the Congress brass, while acknowledging 'some differences'. He had just returned from a five-nation diplomatic tour by an all-party team, which included meetings in the US after Operation Sindoor.advertisementDuring the tour, his comments praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew criticism from within the Congress, especially for omitting mention of similar strikes during the UPA regime.
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