Congress leader Udit Raj responded sharply to Shashi Tharoor’s remarks on the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack and questioned his political allegiance. Raj asked if Tharoor was aligned with the Congress or the BJP.”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?” Udit Raj remarked while speaking to on Sunday.His reaction came after Tharoor on Sunday said that the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack took place possibly due to intelligence failure and compared it to the October 7 (2023) strike by the terrorist organisation Hamas, which stunned Israel, a country famed for its strong intel.”Obviously, there was no full proof 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, just two years ago. It seems to me, just as Israel is waiting till the end of the war before they demand accountability, similarly, I think we too should see the present crisis through and then demand accountability from the government. No country can ever have a foolproof 100 per cent intelligence,’ he said.
Raj also sought clarification on Tharoor’s stance, specifically questioning the Congress leader’s comments regarding national security and global terrorism. “I want to ask him which terrorist incident took place after 9/11 in America? Has the BJP appointed him as its spokesperson?” Raj added, indicating concerns over Tharoor’s position on sensitive issues.
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Shashi Tharoor, speaking to ANI on Sunday, pointed out that the successful thwarting of terror attacks often goes unnoticed, while failures are highlighted.”We will never know about the various terror attacks that were successfully thwarted. We only learn about the ones that we failed to thwart. This is normal in any nation. There were failures, I agree, but that should not be our main focus right now…,” the Congress leader said.The terror attack on April 22 in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam targeted tourists, killing 26 people, including one Nepalese national. The victims were gunned down near Baisaran Meadow, a popular tourist destination in the region. This attack marks one of the deadliest in the region since the 2019 Pulwama attack, which resulted in the deaths of 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans.