Congress MP Shashi Tharoor triggered controversy with his remark that India’s first cross-Line of Control (LoC) surgical strike took place in 2016. While the Indian Army's own records appear to support his assertion, the Congress party has distanced itself from his statement, sparking an internal spat. Brushing off the backlash, Tharoor has said his comments have been distorted and that he has “better things to do.”
Speaking as part of an all-party delegation in Panama City on May 28, Tharoor said, “For the first time, India breached the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base… after the Uri strike in September 2016. That was something we had not done before.” He also clarified that even during the Kargil conflict, Indian troops had not crossed the LoC.
Have a look at his entire statement here:
Tharoor Responds to Congress's Criticism
In response to criticism from his own party, Tharoor took to X (formerly Twitter) on May 29, and wrote, “I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars.”
He added, “But as usual, critics and trolls are welcome to distort my views… I genuinely have better things to do.”
Have a look at his post here:
Army Records Back Tharoor’s Statement
Tharoor’s remarks echoed statements made by the Army’s Northern Command in 2016, as well as an RTI response from the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO).
In a 2016 press conference, Lt Gen Ranbir Singh, then Northern Command Chief, had called the September 2016 surgical strikes the first of its kind. Further, responding to a Right to Information query, the DGMO had confirmed, “Army does not have any data pertaining to surgical strikes if carried out before September 29, 2016,” refuting claims of similar operations during the UPA years.
Despite this, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera challenged Tharoor’s version, citing a media report claiming that then Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar told a parliamentary panel in October 2016 about “target-specific, limited-calibre, counter-terrorist operations” conducted previously. However, such committee proceedings are classified and undocumented, limiting their evidentiary weight.
On May 29, he posted an excerpt from Tharoor's book, The Pradoxical Prime Minister, on India's surgical strikes and wrote, "I agree with that Dr @ShashiTharoor who wrote about surgical strikes in his book in 2018 - ‘The Paradoxical Prime Minister’."
Have a look:
The excerpt read, "The shameless exploitation of the 2016 'surgical strikes' along the Line of Control with Pakistan, and of a military raid in hot pursuit of rebels in Myanmar, as 2 party election tool-something the Congress had never done despite having authorized several such strikes earlier-marked a particularly disgraceful dilution of the principle that national security issues require both discretion and non-partisanship."
Congress Rift Deepens As BJP Weighs In
The Congress, clearly uncomfortable with Tharoor’s position, has asked him to revise his remarks made abroad. Adding fuel to the internal rift, Congress leader Udit Raj sarcastically remarked that the BJP should consider appointing Tharoor as External Affairs Minister, given his apparent defence of the government’s foreign policy.
BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari, meanwhile, defended Tharoor by saying, “Pawan Khera is speaking a lie… the Army has already laid out the facts in a RTI reply.”
