Cong leader Udit Raj questions Shashi Tharoor’s political allegiance over Pahalgam attack remarks
New Delhi: Congress leader Udit Raj on Sunday raised concerns over senior party MP Shashi Tharoor’s comments on the Pahalgam terror attack, questioning whether Tharoor was aligned with the Congress or the BJP.
Speaking to ANI, Raj said, "I want to ask Shashi Tharoor, is he in the Congress party or the BJP? Is he trying to become a super-BJP man? Shashi Tharoor should ask the BJP when the government is taking the PoK. Has Shashi Tharoor become the advocate of the BJP?"
The remarks came in response to Tharoor’s comparison of the April 22 Pahalgam attack to the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault on Israel, citing possible intelligence failure. Tharoor said, "Obviously, there was no foolproof intelligence. There was some failure... But we have got the example of Israel, the world's best intelligence services according to everybody, which were taken by surprise on October 7."
He added, "Just as Israel is waiting till the end of the war before demanding accountability, we too should see the present crisis through and then seek accountability. No country can ever have 100 percent foolproof intelligence."
Expressing dissatisfaction with Tharoor’s remarks, Raj further asked, "Which terrorist incident took place after 9/11 in America? Has the BJP appointed him as its spokesperson?" He emphasized the need for clarity on Tharoor’s stance regarding national security and global terrorism.
Defending his statement, Tharoor highlighted that successful prevention of terror attacks often remains unreported. "We will never know about the various terror attacks that were successfully thwarted. We only learn about the ones that we failed to thwart. There were failures, I agree, but that should not be our main focus right now," Tharoor said.
The April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam targeted tourists, killing 26 people, including a Nepalese national, near the popular Baisaran Meadow. It marks one of the deadliest attacks in the region since the 2019 Pulwama bombing, which killed 40 CRPF personnel.
#WATCH | Delhi: On Congress leader Shashi Tharoor's remarks, Congress leader Udit Raj says, "I want to ask Shashi Tharoor, is he in the Congress party or the BJP?...Is he trying to become a super-BJP man? Shashi Tharoor should ask the BJP when the government is taking the… https://t.co/H7uHc2nYY8 pic.twitter.com/f8vBYf8j19
— ANI (@ANI) April 27, 2025
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
