Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses of Parliament, were not invited to the dinner hosted for Russian President Vladimir Putin at the President’s residence on Friday, though Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was.
This comes a day after Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi alleged the Modi government is going against “tradition” and doesn’t want him or a representative of the Opposition to meet Vladimir Putin because of its “insecurity”.
Putin is on a two-day visit to India for annual summit talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Sources in the Congress confirmed to The Indian Express that Rahul Gandhi and Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge were not invited to the dinner being hosted at President Droupadi Murmu’s residence. Tharoor confirmed to The Indian Express that he was invited to the dinner and that he will be going.
Reacting to Tharoor being invited, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said “those who extended such an invitation raise questions, and those who accepted are also open to scrutiny”.
“Everyone has their own conscience, their own inner voice. Had we been invited instead of our leaders, it is clear that we would not have accepted it,” said Khera.
In the past few months, Tharoor has left the Congress red-faced several times. In February, the four-term MP came under fire from the party’s Kerala unit after he wrote a newspaper article highlighting the start-up boom in Kerala during Left rule and saying that “Kerala is beginning to stand out as a model of economic innovation and sustainable growth”.
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Last month, Tharoor had antagonised the Congress leadership after he wrote an article on dynasty politics in which he says that the Nehru-Gandhi family “cemented the idea that political leadership can be a birthright”. Dynastic politics, he had said, poses a “grave threat to Indian democracy” and it is time to trade “dynasty for meritocracy”.
