Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
An article by senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor in a Malayalam newspaper, in which Mr. Tharoor was critical of the 1975 Emergency, triggered a war of words between Congress and BJP leaders on Thursday (July 10, 2025). Without naming Mr. Tharoor, Lok Sabha member from Tamil Nadu Manickam Tagore said when a colleague repeats lines used by the BJP, the bird becomes a parrot. Hitting back, the BJP said while it had taken 50 years for a Congress leader to realise the excesses of Emergency, some leaders are still displaying the same “mindset”. The Congress, however, has not offered any formal response to Mr. Tharoor’s piece on Emergency. The controversy started after Mr. Tharoor wrote a piece in Malayalm daily, Deepika, in which he described Emergency as a “dark chapter” and noted that the people of the country responded clearly to the excesses of that period by voting Indira Gandhi out of power by a large margin.“When a colleague starts repeating BJP lines word for word, you begin to wonder — is the bird becoming a parrot? Mimicry is cute in birds, not in politics.” Mr. Tagore said in a post. Though he didn’t name the colleague, the reference to Mr. Tharoor was lost on none as the bird analogy was used by the Thiruvananthapuram MP himself last month to respond to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge.On June 25, when reporters pointed out that Mr. Tharoor had lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s handling of foreign policy post Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, Mr. Kharge had said his party believed in the “country first” mantra but for some, it is “Modi first and country later”. Also Read | BJP questions Congress over not nominating Tharoor for delegation on Operation SindoorResponding to a query about Mr. Tharoor drawing criticism from his own party colleagues, BJP MP and spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said if the Congress was opposing his remarks against Emergency, it was clear that the party considered the mentality of Emergency to be correct and even today they supported it with complete “shamelessness”. “Why was Emergency imposed? because Indira Gandhi ji’s election was cancelled. So, the Congress said the recognition of constitutional institutions would be decided based on their electoral victory and defeat. And, now you have seen the demonstration held in Bihar, their mentality has not changed in 50 years,” Mr. Trivedi said. Published - July 10, 2025 09:18 pm IST
