Shashi Tharoor accuses ‘The Indian Express’ of misquoting him
The Congress MP said that the newspaper misrepresented an innocuous statement to imply that he was exploring other political options.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday accused The Indian Express of misrepresenting remarks that he made during a Malayalam podcast with the newspaper. In a series of posts on X, the Thiruvananthapuram MP accused the newspaper of “flagrantly irresponsible journalism”.
On February 23, Tharoor was quoted as having said during the podcast that he was available for the Congress, but if the party did not need his services, he had “options”. He was also quoted as saying that several party workers felt that there was “an absence of a leader in Kerala’s Congress”.
On Thursday, Tharoor said that The Indian Express had misrepresented an innocuous statement that he had made during the Malayalam podcast, while reporting on it in English. The Congress leader said he had remarked that he had multiple “options to spend my time” in literary pursuits, but the newspaper implied that he was exploring other political options.
On the purported statement about the absence of a leader in the Congress’ state unit, Tharoor said a video clip of the interview showed that he had said no such thing. The newspaper subsequently published a correction, saying that the remark had been inaccurately translated.
As per the updated article, the Congress MP had said: “We have many leaders, but many feel that there are no ordinary workers.”
Tharoor, however, said on social media that The Indian Express issued the correction belatedly, “after all the damage has been done”.
1/5 A rather important thread that i hope will be read in our country’s journalism schools:
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) February 27, 2025
The last few days have offered an object lesson in how the news is “made“. @IndianExpress wanted to draw attention to their new Malayalam podcast, so they did two somewhat shameless… pic.twitter.com/K1SAGdfMB3
The controversy emerged in the backdrop of Tharoor’s remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States, saying that there were encouraging developments on talks about tariffs, and on the United States’ commitment to sell F-35 stealth aircraft to the Indian Air Force.
Tharoor had also praised the “success” of the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala in setting up 2.9 lakh medium, small and micro enterprises since 2022.
To a question by The Indian Express about these remarks, the Congress MP said he always expressed his opinions when it came to the betterment of the country and Kerala.
“I have never thought about political implications before commenting on something I am convinced about,” he said. “This is the reason I sometimes laud the good initiatives of governments or parties that are rivals to the Congress.”
