Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday strongly responded to internal criticism, especially from party colleague Udit Raj, over his recent remarks in Panama about India’s surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC).

Tharoor, currently leading a multi-party delegation to five countries post-Operation Sindoor, clarified on social media platform X that his statement referred strictly to India’s retaliatory actions following recent terrorist attacks — not historical military operations or wars.

“Critics are welcome to distort my words, but I genuinely have better things to do,” Tharoor wrote, citing a packed schedule and an upcoming early-morning departure to Colombia. He added, “After a long and successful day in Panama, I have to wind up at midnight here with departure for Bogota, Colombia in six hours, so I don’t really have time for this — but anyway: For those zealots fulminating about my supposed ignorance of Indian valour across the LoC: in the past: 1. I was clearly and explicitly speaking only about reprisals for terrorist attacks and not about previous wars; & 2. My remarks were preceded by a reference to the several attacks that have taken place in recent years alone, during which previous Indian responses were both restrained and constrained by our responsible respect for the LoC and the IB.”

The controversy was triggered after Tharoor reportedly said in Panama that India had, “for the first time,” conducted a cross-LoC strike on a terror base in 2016 — a statement perceived by some as an endorsement of the Modi government’s narrative.

Reacting sharply, Udit Raj wrote on X, “My dear Shashi Tharoor, Alas! I could prevail upon PM Modi to declare you as super spokesperson of BJP, even declaring (you) as foreign minister before landing in India. How could you denigrate the golden history of Congress by saying that before PM Modi, India never crossed LoC and International border?”

Raj further reminded Tharoor of Congress-era military achievements: “In 1965 Indian Army entered Pakistan at multiple points, which completely surprised the Pakistanis in the Lahore sector. In 1971, India tore Pakistan in two pieces and during UPA government several surgical strikes were unleashed but drum beating was not done to encash (it) politically.”

Udit Raj, who heads the Unorganised Workers and Employees Congress Other Than Professionals, accused Tharoor of being unfaithful to the very party that brought him into politics.