Kolkata: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his gesture of congratulating him after winning the Lok Sabha elections, saying he did not expect him to reach out after their “nasty” spat.
At the same time, Mr. Tharoor was critical of the Modi government, saying there is a huge gap between rhetoric and reality.
Mr. Tharoor, whose wife Sunanda Pushkar’s mysterious death has led police to register a murder case and triggered a controversy, also lashed out at the media, alleging it is “irresponsible”.
“I didn’t expect him (Modi) to reach out and that’s why I was very impressed,” the Congress MP said during a media interaction at the launch of his book “India Shashtra” in the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival.
“I was surprised because Mr. Modi had not shown signs of reconciliation with an opponent before that. He and I had also clashed quite clearly and explicitly 3 to 8 months previously when he had said something about my wife,” he said, recalling Mr. Modi’s “nasty” tweet about Sunanda.
In an apparent attack on Sunanda, Mr. Modi had said at a Lok Sabha election rally in Shimla last year, “Wah kya girlfriend hai. Aapne kabhi dekha hai 50 crore ki girlfriend?” (What a girlfriend? Have you ever seen a 50—crore girlfriend)
Mr. Tharoor had later taken on Mr. Modi by tweeting, “My wife is worth a lot more than your imaginary 50 crores. She is priceless.”
Mr. Tharoor, who had accepted the Prime Minister’s invitation to join the ‘Swachh Bharat’ mission of the NDA government, said, “I must admit that I was taken aback. It was a very gracious thing to do”.
Mr. Tharoor recalled that Mr. Modi had also reached out to him earlier on Twitter but that had political reasons as he had appealed to him to get young voters to register.
“I joined because that was the cause I believed in,” he said.
Mr. Tharoor did not take any questions from the media when asked about the Sunanda murder case.
He also praised BJP for including more women in the party, terming it as a “healthy sign”.
“I am pleased that the BJP is finally making room for the right gender because that was a very very male dominant government and a male dominant party. So that’s a healthy sign.”
In a no-holds-barred attack on the media, Mr. Tharoor said that the advent of 24/7 TV channels and the pressure of breaking news and TRPs have led to a race to the bottom in terms of sensation, voyeurism and headline grabbing.
“I have been misquoted in media, being defamed now day in and day out,” he said, adding, the media is “free and irresponsible”.
“90 per cent of Indian journalists do not record what I am saying. Almost every quote attributed to me in the Indian media is an inadequate para-phrase by the journalist of what he thinks I said.
“My fluency is only valued to those who are actually hearing me. If tomorrow there is a newspaper article about this, I guarantee the quotes will be wrong”.
Mr. Tharoor also said that there was always either a by-poll somewhere or state Assembly polls and to win the elections Mr. Modi has to take the help of RSS to “polarise the electorate”.
He said that Mr. Modi himself started off as an RSS pracharak and so he also belongs to the same school of thought.
Answering a question on Kiran Bedi joining the BJP and speculation about Shazia Ilmi and Jaya Prada joining the party, Mr. Tharoor said, “I know Shazia. She is a bright woman, but I am sure she is going to get hit because of what she said about the BJP as recently as a year ago on forums like Twitter, which you can’t quite easily erase now.”
On Ms. Bedi’s joining BJP, he said that she was always inclined that way in the last couple of years. “It was just a matter of time.”
Describing Jaya Prada, a former SP MP, as a socialist for many years, he said, “She did come knocking on the doors of the Congress party. How someone who is a socialist and from Samajwadi party can be comfortable in the party (BJP)?” Mr. Tharoor wondered.
Shashi Tharoor today criticises the media
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor today criticised the media, particularly news channels, saying, “(Economist) Amartya Sen had this book with that wonderful title, The Argumentative Indian, where he said our democracy is the product of reasoned debate. But what we have in our country today, particularly on television, is a lot of debate but very little reason.”
Dr. Tharoor, who is in Kolkata for the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival, has been tailed by the media at every venue he went to, including to the launch of his own book, ‘India Shastra: Reflections on the Nation in Our Time’, today.
Last week, police had filed a case of murder over the death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Dr Tharoor. She had been found dead in a five-star hotel in January 2014.
Speaking about the media, Dr Tharoor said at the festival, “I will definitely blame the advent of news television for transforming the nature of the Indian press, including the print. You are seeing a race to the bottom in terms of the most sensationalistic, the most voyeuristic, the most headline grabbing attention that will temporarily get you a TRP or two”.
There is a bright side, however, to all the attention his latest book is garnering because of the media spotlight on him. Dr Tharoor told NDTV, “It certainly means there is much more media interest than there normally would be in a literary festival and that can get in the way of writers and add to the amusement for some others. But frankly, as their interest is not literary, I think we will just have to ignore it.”
Dr Tharoor also said his party, the Congress, has been supportive of him. “My party has never not been supportive and as far as I am concerned, there is no politics in this matter. There has been a deep, shall we say, tragedy that has shaken me as an individual. I neither expect nor demand that any other considerations need to come into this matter.”
