Congress leaders and their undying love for Pakistan is something which has fascinated Indians for years. In what comes as the latest entrant to the Congress’ golden club of India denigrators, Shashi Tharoor participated in the Lahore Literature Festival and made sure that he heaped praises on the Islamist terror state while ranting about the Modi government’s alleged shortcomings back in India on a range of issues. The Thiruvananthapuram MP, while speaking to a Pakistani journalist, attacked the Indian government’s Covid-19 handling, alleged side-lining and ‘dehumanisation’ of Indian Muslims after the Tablighi Jamaat event and the country’s economic performance of late.
Reportedly, the conversation at the Lahore Literature Festival took place a month ago, when India was peaking in terms of its daily addition of Covid cases and also fatalities. Ever since the pandemic has witnessed a marked downward trajectory in the country, so it would indeed be interesting to see if Mr. Tharoor rolls back on his comments. What was more shocking, however, was Tharoor’s rather elaborate praising of Pakistan and how it was rapidly returning to normalcy.
“We look with envy across the border because you ‘chaps’ seem to be having a rather pleasant time of it in terms of being able to return to normalcy. We are still facing many places where numbers are going up so there’s no sense yet of a peak having been reached; and, in some parts, including both the capital where I am now, and in my constituency of Thiruvananthapuram in the extreme South, the numbers are worse than they have ever been,” the senior Congress leader said. This, despite the fact that Pakistan’s Covid numbers from the start of the pandemic have been as real as democracy ever was in the terror state.
As if campaigning for Rahul Gandhi in Lahore, Tharoor also remarked how the former Congress President deserved all credit for flagging an impending health crisis in February this year itself. He diligently explained, albeit in the classic Congress style of myopia, how “The Indian government is not doing well and the people realize this. Rahul Gandhi mentioned as early as February that COVID-19 must be taken seriously otherwise India will face economic catastrophe so he should get credit for it.” Taking a swipe at the Congress, BJP’s Sambit Patra vowed to refer to Rahul Gandhi as “Rahul Lahoriya”.
Tharoor then took to sharing his frustration with his Pakistani host of how the Indian public does not seem to be echoing the Congress’ view of the government’s handling of the pandemic, and consequent economic slowdown. Ideally, this should have been reason enough for the Congress MP to realise how tremendously wrong he and his party were, but he chose to ignore the signs and went on with the rant.
The Congress certainly has the knack for ranting about domestic issues on Pakistani soil. Earlier in 2015, it was Mani Shankar Aiyar who had beseeched the Pakistani state to help Congress get rid of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government back in India. The Congress leader had also remarked that talks between Pakistan and India would not move on till the time Narendra Modi was the Prime Minister. Shashi Tharoor now seems to be following Aiyar’s lead, in a more refined manner, of course.