A day after Congress party released its full list of speakers for the ongoining debate on Operation Sindoor in Parliament, senior MP Manish Tewari was on social media with a cryptic message - and set tongues wagging about what it means to lay silent concerns within party ranks out in the open.
Most notable among the omissions from the list of speakers was Tewari, the Chandigarh MP, and Shashi Tharoor — another elder statesman with a terrific parliamentary presence.
Their absence has raised eyebrows within and outside the Congress camp, particularly during the Opposition's rush to goad the Centre at the politically charged debate.
Tewari took to X (formerly Twitter) to put out his response, quoting lines from a popular patriotic song sung in the 1970 film Purab Aur Pachhim, as well as a media report detailing the controversy.
"Hai preet jahaan ki reet sada; Main geet wahaan ke gaata hoon; Bharat ka rehne waala hoon; Bharat ki baat sunata hoon," he wrote, ending the tweet with a sharp "Jai Hind."
The nationalistic-hued enigmatic message is being interpreted as a veiled show of discontent at being left out.
Adding fuel to the mystery is the revelation that both Tewari and Tharoor had only been part of India's diplomatic missions overseas recently, after Operation Sindoor — so their exclusion all the more prominent with the background of their foreign policy exposure and presence at international forums.
Amar Singh, also a Congress MP and a part of the same outreach campaign, was also left out of the list of speakers.
Congress sources indicated that Tharoor was invited to join the debate but refused. However, no reason has been officially given for his refusal, giving rise to rumors of alleged discontent or internal differences.
Tharoor's public leadership role in a recent trip to the United States to represent India's position after Operation Sindoor makes his absence from the debate all the more intriguing.
The sidelining of both Tewari and Tharoor — both widely considered articulate, seasoned voices, especially on foreign affairs — has generated behind-the-scenes whispers about internal factionalism or potential strategic blunders within the party's parliamentary strategy.
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