KC Venugopal (right) urges Congress leaders to be careful while speaking amid row over Shashi Tharoor’s CJP remarks (File photo)
NEW DELHI: Congress general secretary KC Venugopal on Sunday urged party leaders to “exercise caution” and avoid making remarks that could “please the BJP.”Venugopal was responding to questions about Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s comments suggesting that Rahul Gandhi’s “Chhatron Ki Goonj” student outreach programme had failed to resonate with Gen Z as much as the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)-led protests.“Even if Congress members do not always strictly abide by party frameworks or discipline, we must be careful to avoid making statements that merely appease the BJP. The BJP will be delighted if someone finds fault with Rahul Gandhi or says two negative things about him—it would be the happiest thing for them,” PTI quoted the Alappuzha MP as saying.However, Venugopal clarified that he did not believe Tharoor had made the remarks deliberately.“I have only seen his (Tharoor’s) statement reported by some media channels, as far as I know. I haven’t been able to hear exactly what he said. All of us should take care, whether knowingly or unknowingly—and I don’t believe he said it knowingly, nor is he likely to have said it intentionally—to refrain from making such remarks,” the senior Congress leader added.
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Tharoor, while speaking at an event in Maharashtra on Friday, had replied in the affirmative when asked whether the “Chhatron Ki Goonj” programme had failed to resonate with young people as much as the CJP agitation, despite both raising similar issues.“Correct. And that’s why we need to ask ourselves what we failed to do,” the Thiruvananthapuram MP replied. “Did we fail to listen? Did we fail to tap into the old cliché of having our finger on the pulse of the people? Was our finger missing from the pulse of Gen Z? That’s something we really need to interrogate.”A day later, however, Tharoor criticised the media for allegedly interpreting his remarks as “an attack on my own party or its leadership.”He maintained that his comments were meant to stress the need for political parties to open their doors and create pathways for the next generation to play a greater role in shaping politics.