As tensions between Congress and its leader Shashi Tharoor escalated on Thursday, the party’s general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala tried to pacify frayed tempers, saying there is no acrimony among its leaders. Randeep Surjewala, however, erred in claiming that surgical strikes against Pakistan were held for the first time in 2016.

Addressing the media, Surjewala said Shashi Tharoor’s recent remarks about surgical strikes, made as the leader of an all-party delegation to expose Pakistan, were factually incorrect and that the Congress had only corrected the record by pointing out that the surgical strikes and also at other dens of terrorists “were regularly executed” during Congress-led UPA government to give a befetting reply to terrorists.

“Shashi Tharoor is a senior Congress leader and very much part of the Congress family. However, what he said about the surgical strike was factually incorrect,” Surjewala told reporters.

He said surgical strikes had been carried out by the armed forces, and when the Congress-led UPA government was in power.

“Congress party only corrected (him) by pointing out that surgical strikes against Pakistan and other dens of terrorists was a regular feature even during the UPA term – to give a befitting reply to terrorists by our armed forces and the Congress governments. Those instances have been detailed in the past by the communications department (when Surjewala headed the department). Former PM Dr Manmohan Singh as himself spoken about them; Tharoor himself in his book spoken about them, and Jairam Ramesh and Pawan Khera have only put the record straight. It is not a matter of acrimony and doubt,” Surjewala said.

Shashi Tharoor, who is leading an all-party delegation to partner countries to highlight India’s zero tolerance to terror and Operation Sindoor, said in Panama that India has changed its approach in recent years, and terrorists have also realised they will have to pay a price.

Referring to 2016’s surgical strike and 2019’s Balakot airstrike in his address, the Congress MP from Kerala said, “What has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay; on that, let there be no doubt. When, for the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base, a launch pad – the Uri strike. That was already something we had not done before. Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the Line of Control; in Uri, we did, and then came the attack in Pulwama in January 2019.”

“This time, we have not only gone beyond the Line of Control and the international border. We have struck at the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan by hitting terror bases, training centres, and terror headquarters in nine places,” Tharoor added.

Congress vs Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor’s statement led to some Congress leaders articulating their disagreement.

Several Congress leaders, including media and publicity department head Pawan Khera and party leader Udit Raj, criticised Tharoor for not mentioning surgical strikes against Pakistan during the UPA government in his presentations abroad.

Udit Raj said he should be made a “super spokesperson of the BJP”.

The Congress’s digs continued on Thursday, with Udit Raj saying what the Kerala MP had said was a “lie and a conspiracy to destroy the Congress”.

“The delegations which have been sent are trying to destroy the name of the Congress… Shashi Tharoor says that before PM Modi’s leadership, we never crossed LoC or any international border with Pakistan. It is a big lie and a big conspiracy to destroy the history of the Congress which needs to be replied to,” Raj told PTI.

“He should focus on his duty rather than criticising the Congress party… Congress took required measures in the past but never publicised it or used it as a medium of collecting votes in their favour,” he said.

Raj’s remarks were reposted on X by Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh.

Pawan Khera also shared a screenshot from Tharoor’s book in which he criticised the Modi government for allegedly exploiting the 2016 surgical strikes politically.

“I agree with that Dr Shashi Tharoor who wrote about surgical strikes in his book in 2018 – ‘The Paradoxical Prime Minister’,” Khera said.

“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 a 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,” Tharoor writes in the book.

Shashi Tharoor slams ‘zealots’

An apparently infuriated Tharoor also put out a lengthy post on X.

“After a long and successful day in Panama, I have to wind up at midnight here with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don’t really have time for this ‘”but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC in the past – 1. I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars.”

“My remarks were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone, during which previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB,” Tharoor said, while responding to the criticism.