Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor defended his remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s successful US visit. While addressing the media, he said that he applauded the visit as an India. Following this, he also asserted that he is not a party spokesman that would require him to be critical of the opposition. “…For 16 years I have been in politics. My attitude has been that when somebody in the government, whether it’s our government or some other party’s government, does the right thing or does something well, one should acknowledge and praise it, and when they do something badly, one should criticise it…If I were to praise all the time, no one would take me seriously. If I were to criticise all the time, no one would take me seriously either…There’s got to be some give and take in democracy…What I found with some of the important outcomes of Prime Minister Modi’s visit with US President Trump is that there are good things from the point of view of the Indian people. There are some questions that still remain…Why did the question of the way in which those illegal immigrants were returned to India not get addressed?… Did PM Modi raise it behind closed doors?… I welcome the fact that there is now an agreement to have a negotiation for the next 9 months on trade and tariffs. It’s far better than Washington hastily and unilaterally imposing some tariffs on us, which could have damaged and hurt our exports. It seems to me that something good has been achieved, and I applaud that as an Indian. We can’t always speak only in terms of party interests. I am not a party spokesman. I am an MP elected by all the people of Thiruvananthapuram, and on that basis, I speak as a responsible stakeholder in Indian democracy,” said Shashi Tharoor
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