The Congress leadership reached out to the party’s Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor on whether he would like to participate in the debate on Operation Sindoor but Mr. Tharoor declined and instead expressed desire to speak on The Indian Ports Bill, 2025, party sources said on Monday (July 28, 2025).

Mr. Tharoor’s position on Operation Sindoor and the Pahalgam terror attack has been at odds with his party’s official position.

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However, the sources cited above told The Hindu that Congress’ Deputy Leader in the House Gaurav Gogoi, on being instructed by Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, spoke to the Thiruvananthapuram MP over his participation. The two leaders are said to have “amicably settled” the matter, the sources said.

There was no response from Mr. Tharoor on the assertion made by the party sources. When reporters asked him about not speaking during the debate, the MP, in a lighter vein, claimed to have been on a maun vrat [vow of silence].

Apart from Mr. Gogoi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Depender Hooda, Praniti Shinde, Saptagiri Ulaka and B.S. Ola were listed as speakers. Ms. Vadra, however, did not speak and is likely to speak on Tuesday.

The other high-profile member, Manish Tewari, who was nominated by the Narendra Modi government to be part of a multi-party delegation that was sent for global outreach after Operation Sindoor, was also not part of the Congress’ official list of speakers.

BJP targets Congress

Mr. Tharoor’s absence from the list of speakers, however, was used by BJP leader Baijayant Jay Panda to take a dig at the Congress in his speech during the debate.

“There are several leaders in your (Congress) party who can speak well… My friend Shashi Tharoorji, who is a good speaker, is not allowed to speak by his party,” Mr. Panda claimed, adding that Mr. Tharoor had “earlier spoken in the interest of the country”.

The BJP member from Odisha’s Kendrapara constituency claimed that the approach of the Congress governments in the past was only to increase cooperation with Pakistan and not to retaliate and teach them a lesson.

Mr. Panda, who headed one of the seven multi-party delegations to convey India’s message of zero tolerance against terrorism in May, asserted that Operation Sindoor was an attack on terrorists in Pakistan and not on civilians.

“This is not a reaction, this is Modi’s doctrine, which Pakistan has understood… This is a new normal,” he said, adding that it was shameful that the Opposition only questioned India’s Armed Forces and not Pakistan.