Exclusive: Tharoor has a habit of portraying India negatively, ex-ambassador slams Congress leader for Kuwait tweet

In an exclusive conversation with ETV Bharat's Saurabh Sharma, Former Foreign Secretary of India, Kanwal Sibal slammed Congress MP Shashi Tharoor saying the latter had developed a habit of giving provocative statements that put across a 'negative image' of India. On Friday, Tharoor had shared a tweet of a Kuwaiti lawyer who had posted a letter claiming that Kuwaiti parliamentarians have asked the government to ban the entry of any BJP leaders in the country given the 'persecution' of Muslim girls in India.

New Delhi:Amid the controversy surrounding Senior Congress MP Shashi Tharoor retweeting an 'anti-India' tweet by an alleged “Pakistani agent”, Former Foreign Secretary of India, Kanwal Sibal Saturday said such remarks jeopardize India's image at the global stage.

In an exclusive conversation with ETV Bharat, Sibal slammed Tharoor and said he had developed a habit of giving such provocative statements in the public domain. "Look at the way he (Tharoor) writes for international magazines and papers. Earlier, he penned down an article for an Israeli paper Haaretz which put forward a very negative image of India. In response to his negative article, I also wrote an article. The way he writes puts across a very negative image of India and he does it constantly," Sibal said.

On Friday, Tharoor shared a tweet of Mijbil Al Shureka, a Kuwaiti lawyer who had posted a letter claiming that Kuwaiti parliamentarians have asked the government to ban the entry of any BJP leaders in the country given the 'persecution' of Muslim girls in India.

Sharing the tweet, Tharoor claimed that his friends in the Gulf have expressed dismay at "rising Islamophobia in India and the PM’s unwillingness to condemn it." "Domestic actions have international repercussions. I hear from friends across the Gulf of their dismay at rising Islamophobia in India & the PM’s unwillingness to condemn it, let alone act decisively against it. “We like India. But don’t make it so hard for us to be your friends," tweeted Tharoor.

Soon after, the Indian embassy in Kuwait slammed Tharoor and said the Kuwaiti lawyer was actually a "Pakistani agent. “Sad to see an Hon’ble Member of Indian Parliament retweeting an anti-India tweet by a Pakistani agent who was recipient of a Pakistani Award ‘Ambassador of Peace’ for his anti-India activities. We should not encourage such anti-India elements", the Indian Embassy in Kuwait tweeted.

Sibal too slammed Tharoor on Twitter. "Remove these wrong impressions rather than feeding them with writing in the same vein in foreign publications. Saudi Army Chief & Omani Naval Chief just visited India. FTA signed with UAE today. Where’s the dismay? Why use any excuse to blame Modi? Give up Hinduphobia to start with," the former ambassador tweeted.

Asked if Congress should take note of Tharoor's actions and stop its leaders from posting such statements, Sibal told ETV Bharat: "Come on! The way Rahul Gandhi speaks and writes about Narendra Modi is all over. In fact, Rahul Gandhi last year in a conversation with Ambassador Nicholas Burns (a career diplomat and an academic who is now US Ambassador to China) asked him to interfere in India’s domestic politics when he asked Burns why don’t the United States see what is happening to India’s Democracy under the BJP led by Narendra Modi. The other day he quotes the New York Times. As such, what do you expect from the Party Command?”.

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A clear demarcation in internal politics and external affairs, Sibal said, was an ideal and ethical concept. “You remember when a whole list of 65 MPs wrote a letter to US President Barack Obama in late 2012 against granting the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a US visa. It says a lot about how democracy functions here," he said.

Meanwhile, Shashi Tharoor, responded to the Indian Embassy in Kuwait, said he had not heard of the person whose tweet he had shared. "I don't endorse this individual, whom i'd never heard of, but am concerned about the sentiment he conveys, which is sadly shared by many who are friends of India. While accepting @indembkwt (India in Kuwait)'s view, I urge GoI not2give ammo to such anti-India elements by condoning misconduct here."