Today in Politics: As Congress's woes pile up, can it calm things down?
It looks set to be a power-packed end to the working week for some of our top political leaders, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi coming to the end of his multi-state whirlwind tour and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Jammu. However, the more pressing issues appear to be on Congress's plate.
First, the whole Shashi Tharoor episode appears to be getting out of hand. After the Congress clapped back at its Thiruvananthapuram MP for suggesting that the military had never crossed the Line of Control before 2016, Tharoor on Thursday responded to 'those zealots fulminating' about his 'supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC in the past'. He clarified that he was 'clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about wars'. Then, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh sparked a fresh furore amid all the sense of political unity generated by the multi-party missions sent across the globe, saying that just as the terrorists behind the Palagam attack had not been caught, the teams holding meetings in world capitals were 'roaming' about.
So, where does the Congress go from here? Can it afford to cast aside a leader such as Tharoor, have a public fallout like this? No matter what the party brass thinks of his value in the realpolitik matrix of Kerala polls that are due next year, leaders like Tharoor also have their uses, and it is not a sound strategy to push him into the arms of the BJP. Moreover, can it introspect on its approach to the entire matter?
As Manoj CG writes in his Capital Column this week, 'Having handled the days following the Pahalgam terror attack well, standing in full solidarity with the government and reining in its motormouths, the Congress has let all that flow out of the window. The most glaring example has been the party's response to the all-party delegations chosen by the government to present India's case against Pakistan abroad.
'If that was a canny move by a government not known to cede space to the Opposition, the Congress — rather than recognising when it is beat — has been churlish, starting with picking at names of its leaders chosen by the government for the teams.'
Manoj also writes: 'The most unseeming spectacle has been the sniping between the Congress's own leaders and Tharoor who, by all accounts, is the star speaker of the delegations. As this plays out publicly on social media, it is being amplified by the party's communications department, with apparently no efforts to check the same. Many wondered why the party then allowed its leaders to be part of the all-party government exercise in the first place.'
Second, the Congress also has a problem on its hands in Karnataka, where several of its Muslim leaders have resigned over a spurt in communal attacks in the state's Dakshina Kannada district, report Akram M and Kiran Parashar. These leaders and party workers are angry with the state home ministry headed by G Parameshwara, accusing it of failing to curb these incidents. The government has set up a Special Action Force to curb communal crimes in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Shivamogga.
Two different problems, but both carry the potential to hurt the Congress. Given this situation, can the country's largest Opposition party then get over petty squabbles and focus on the matters at hand and amicably resolve them? These will be among the things to watch out for on Friday.
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