Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday refused to accept the Veer Savarkar Award, saying organisers named him without consent. Congress leaders also weighed in as the row widened.
Keralam Election Results: Congress leads in 54 seats, CPI(M) in 31; Tharoor says ‘time for change’ as UDF gains early edge (ANI Photo)
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday firmly ruled out accepting an award named after VD Savarkar, stressing that the organisers had announced his name without his consent and without sharing any details about the honour.
His refusal came even as senior party colleague K Muraleedharan publicly urged Congress leaders to stay away from any award linked to the Hindutva ideologue, whom he alleged had “bowed before the British”.
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Tharoor said he would not accept the “Veer Savarkar International Impact Award 2025” nor attend the ceremony in the absence of clarity on the award’s nature, its purpose, or the organisation behind it.
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He criticised the organisers for naming him as a recipient ‘irresponsibly’, adding that he learned of the announcement only through media reports while he was in Kerala for local body polls.
“I heard about it yesterday only. I am not going. I am not here,” he told reporters in Delhi earlier in the day.
In a subsequent post on X, the Thiruvananthapuram MP reiterated, “In the absence of clarifications about the nature of the award, the organisation presenting it or any other contextual details, the question of my attending the event today or accepting the award does not arise.”
Earlier, Muraleedharan told reporters that no Congress leader should accept an award named after Savarkar, asserting that doing so would ‘insult and embarrass the party’. He added that he did not believe Tharoor would accept such an honour.
Kerala Law Minister P Rajeev, meanwhile, said it was entirely Tharoor’s decision whether to accept the award.
Aji Krishnan, secretary of the Highrange Rural Development Society (HRDS) India, the organisation that instituted the award, countered Tharoor’s version, claiming the MP was informed “well in advance”.
He said HRDS representatives and the chairman of the award jury had personally briefed Tharoor and handed over the list of recipients.
“We gave him the list. He has not yet informed us that he will not come to the event. Perhaps he is scared, as the Congress has made it an issue,” Krishnan said.
The “Veer Savarkar International Impact Award 2025”, instituted by HRDS India, was scheduled to be presented in New Delhi on Wednesday. Tharoor was chosen as one of its inaugural recipients.
On Tuesday, he had already indicated that he was unaware of the award and would need to “find out what it is”.
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