Protest mounts against Tharoor for Modi praise

The protest is mounting against Congress leader Shashi Tharoor from within the party in Kerala over his praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A Congress MP from Kerala even urged Congress president Sonia Gandhi to initiate action against Tharoor. Some Congress leaders blamed that Tharoor's soft approach towards Modi could be owing to the case over Tharoor's wife Sunanda Pushkar's death.

Tharoor said the other day that Modi should be praised whenever he said of did the right thing as it would only add credibility to the criticism by Congress leaders when Modi erred.

Kerala PCC president Mullapally Ramachandran and senior Congress leader and Kerala opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala were among those who flayed Tharoor. Ramesh said that since Modi had been initiating anti-people policies, any single good act from his side did not deserve any praise, Ramachandran termed Tharoor's stand as unfortunate.

Congress leader and MP T N Prathapan wrote a letter to Sonia Gandhi seeking immediate intervention into the issue. Another Congress leader and MP K Muraleedharan said that Tharoor may join BJP if he wanted to praise Modi. He demanded Congress leadership to take stern action against Tharoor. He also asked if Tharoor was praising Modi owing to fear over cases against him.

Meanwhile, Tharoor maintained that he was one of the Congress leaders who used to strongly criticise Modi and hence nobody needs to teach him how to take on Modi.