Tharoor suggested that India’s voice at the Summit may now carry less weight than it could have had PM Modi himself gone there.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor (Photo Credits: ANI)
Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday questioned the Narendra Modi government’s decision to send MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh to the Sharm el-Sheikh Gaza peace summit.
Prime Minister Modi was reportedly invited for the summit which will be held on Monday in Egypt’s Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh. However, India decided to send MoS Singh to the high-profile Summit attended by several heads of state.
Advertisement
US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Council President Antonio Costa, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif are among the notable attendees.
Advertisement
Reacting to the government’s decision to send a Minister of State instead of Prime Minister Modi attending the event himself, Tharoor said, “India’s presence at the Sharm el-Sheikh Gaza peace summit, at the level of a Minister of State, stands in stark contrast to the heads of state gathered there. Strategic restraint or missed opportunity?”
The Congress leader further clarified that his remarks are not a reflection on Kirti Vardhan Singh but asserted that “given the galaxy of grandees present, India’s choice could be seen as signalling a preference for strategic distance, which our statements don’t convey.”
Tharoor suggested that India’s voice at the Summit may now carry less weight than it could have had PM Modi himself gone there.
“In a region reshaping itself, our relative absence is puzzling,” he added.
Advertisement
