NEW DELHI: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday once again praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stance on Russia-Ukraine conflict, stating that “peace is absolutely important for the world but as our PM said peace cannot be found on the battlefield.” These remarks comes a day after Tharoor said that his initial criticism of India’s position on the conflict had left him with “egg on his face.”
“Russia-Ukraine peace is absolutely important for the world but as our PM said peace can not be found on the battlefield. It will have to require some negotiation. We are glad that some process has started already but these are early days,” Tharoor told news agency PTI.
“We don’t know if they are only talking about a ceasefire or whether there is going to be an enduring peace settlement… We have to wait and watch, I think the speculation here is very premature,” Tharoor said.
Earlier, during a panel discussion at the Raisina Dialogue, Tharoor acknowledged his previous misjudgment, noting that India’s diplomatic approach had given the Prime Minister a unique position to “hug both the president of Ukraine and the president of Moscow two weeks apart and be accepted in both places.”
“I am still wiping the egg off my face because I was one person in the parliamentary debate who actually criticised the Indian position at the time back in February 2022,” Tharoor said.
“On the well-worn grounds that Espen (Norway’s Foreign Minister) will understand because he and I talked about all this in my UN days, that there was a violation of the UN Charter, sovereignty of a member state, namely Ukraine, and we had always stood for the that there had been a violation of the principle of the inviolability of borders of a sovereign state, inadmissibility of the use of force to settle international disputes and all of those principles had been violated by one party, and we should have condemned it,” he continued.
“Well, 3 years later, it does look like I am the one with egg on my face because clearly, the policy has meant that India actually has a Prime Minister who can hug both the president of Ukraine and the president of Moscow two weeks apart and be accepted in both places and therefore India is in a position where it can make a difference to a lasting peace if it was so required in ways that very few countries would be able to,” he further added.
Meanwhile, BJP leaders Ravi Shankar Prasad and Sambit Patra welcomed Tharoors’s remarks, urging other Congress leaders to follow the same suit in supporting India’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“He thinks that the statements he made regarding the Russia-Ukraine war in the past were not right. The policies of the Indian government were right… Better late than never… The decisions made by the Modi government are in the favour of the nation… The way Shashi Tharoor has admitted, other leaders of Congress should do the same,” Prasad told news ANI.
Echoing the same sentiment, BJP leader Sambit Patra called on Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi to come forward and appreciate Tharoor’s position.
“Shashi Tharoor understands diplomacy, he had been in the UN for a very long time. He has appreciated PM Modi’s stand in the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” Patra said.
“Other leaders of Congress should also learn from Shashi Tharoor instead of speaking against PM Modi and the nation every time… Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi should come forward and appreciate Shashi Tharoor’s stand,” he added.
