Tharoor courts row over Nehru remarks, but blames media

Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has become a major embarrassment for the Congress as well as his senior External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.

Time and again, Tharoor, a former UN diplomat and an elected Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala has courted trouble with his not-so-discreet comments on social networking website Twitter.

The first time he got into a controversy when he joked about the Congress party’s austerity measures during flights, commenting that he too had traveled in “cattle class” alluding to the Economy class in airline. Then he had to clarify his statement after the Congress leaders got upset.

His recent questioning of the government’s visa restrictions following terror threats on Twitter again sparked an uproar and Krishna had to make a terse remark about a minister criticizing in public about official policies.

In the latest goof-up, Tharoor provoked the party with his observations on Jawaharlal Nehru at a meeting in New Delhi on Jan 9, but he sought to defend himself alleging that the media was at fault. "My remarks have been distorted. I am pained at the inaccurate reporting," he said.

Tharoor was quoted as saying that while Nehru’s foreign policy had taken India to a new level in the international arena, the criticism was that it amounted to a “moralistic running commentary on other countries’ behaviour”. Tharoor, however, clarified that he was merely summarising the views of Lord Parekh – who was the previous speaker at the Indian Council for World Affairs. Tharoor spoke after British MP, Lord Bhikhu Parekh delivered a lecture at the Indian Council for World Affairs (ICWA), during which he made a critical assessment of the policies of Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi.

With Tharoor clarifying that he was misquoted on his remarks on Nehru, the Congress decided the matter should be put to rest.

- Asian Tribune -