Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said that India’s foreign policy must return to being a consensual national endeavour with bipartisan agreement and support, lamenting that the Narendra Modi-led central government has reduced it to BJP’s and Congress’s foreign policy. Addressing the Congress’ 85th plenary session in Raipur, Tharoor also criticised the government for “[refusing] to take the nation into confidence on vital foreign policy issues.”
“International affairs, foreign policy, was long seen as an area of national consensus in which there was no Congress foreign policy or BJP foreign policy, only Indian foreign policy and Indian national interests,” said the Lok Sabha member, who has also served as minister of state for external affairs in Congress-led government.
“This tradition has sadly been undermined by the Modi government, which speaks ill of its predecessors abroad and refuses to take the nation into confidence on vital foreign policy issues, including what is happening on the LAC with China,” he added.
Tharoor also expressed shock over external affairs minister S Jaishankar’s recent statement “[implying] that China is too rich to stand up to.”
“We must demand that parliament be taken into confidence, that the nation be told what is our thinking about our vital national security interests. Foreign policy must again return to being a consensual national endeavour with bipartisan agreement and support,” Tharoor said.
The Congress leader also asserted that Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra was a huge success and it has revived the self confidence of the party cadres.
“The fact is that India’s future is bright as long as Congress fights the good fight,” he said.
The Congress is set to pass a political resolution at the plenary session on Saturday with a vision document for the 2024 Lok Sabha election and a mission statement to “go all out to identify, mobilise and align like-minded secular forces” to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Besides the political resolution, the Congress will also deliberate and finalise two more resolutions – on economic and international affairs.
