‘Neither aware of, nor had accepted’: Shashi Tharoor on ‘receiving’ Veer Savarkar Award

Congress MP says he will not attend the award event Delhi, 'in the absence of clarifications about its nature or the organisation presenting it'

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said he would not accept an award named after Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, nor attend a related event in Delhi, in the absence of clarifications about its nature or the organisation presenting it.

Tharoor said he learnt about receiving the award while he was in Kerala on Tuesday.

In a post on X on Wednesday, the MP for Thiruvananthapuram, said, "I have come to know from media reports that I have been named a recipient of the 'Veer Savarkar Award', which is to be presented today in Delhi. I only learned about this announcement yesterday in Kerala, where I had gone to vote in the local self-government elections."

Tharoor said that "it was irresponsible on the part of the organisers to announce my name without my having agreed to receive it".

He said he had told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram "that I was neither aware of, nor had accepted" the award.

He added that despite his earlier clarification, some media outlets continue to ask him the same question in Delhi and hence he was issuing “this statement to clarify the matter unequivocally".

“In the absence of clarifications about the nature of the award, the organization presenting it or any other contextual details, the question of my attending the event today or accepting the award does not arise,” he said.

While speaking to news agency PTI about the award, Tharoor said, "I am not getting anything. I just heard about it yesterday and I am not going."

'MP was informed'

Following Tharoor's statement, Aji Krishnan, secretary of the Highrange Rural Development Society (HRDS) India which is presenting the award, told a TV channel that the Congress MP was informed about the matter well in advance, according to the news agency.

He said that representatives of HRDS India and the chairman of the award jury had met Tharoor at his residence to invite him and the MP had asked for a list of the other recipients of the award.

"We gave him the list. He has not yet informed us that he will not come for the event. Perhaps he is scared as the Congress has made it an issue," Krishnan claimed.

Earlier in the day, Congress leader K Muraleedharan told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram that no party member, including Tharoor, should accept any award in the name of Veer Savarkar "as he had bowed before the British".

Muraleedharan said that he does not believe that Tharoor would accept the award as doing so would insult and embarrass the Congress.