My demand to abolish death penalty ill-timed: Tharoor

NEW DELHI: Former minister and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has reportedly acknowledged that his public demand for abolition of death sentence was badly timed as it came on the day of Mumbai blasts convict Yakub Memon's hanging, a debate that handed BJP an opportunity to accuse the party of being soft on terrorism.

After his remarks kicked up a row, Tharoor is learnt to have told fellow MPs that he had only raised a principled stance against death sentence based on his beliefs. He said it was not said in reference to any particular case like the 1993 Mumbai blasts. However, Tharoor acknowledged that his remarks on death sentence was badly timed given the sensitivity of the issue and the way BJP pounced on it to paint the statement as being sympathetic to Memon.

Senior BJP member Arun Jaitley had seized upon Tharoor's comments along with those of AICC general secre tary Digvijaya Singh's to accuse Congress of playing politics with terror. In retaliation, Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala said no individual member could change the Congress policy on Memon's hanging, which was a result of judicial process.

Before getting embroiled in the hanging row, Tharoor was in the news when he diverged from party consensus on obstructing Parliament. He was admonished by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi after reports of his dissent appeared in the media and was blamed for the press leaks. It has now emerged Tharoor wrote to Sonia protesting the dressing down when she said he was in the habit of making controversial statements and suggested he was behind the media leaks of his own comments. He lamented that his sincere work for the party had not been appreciated. "I was dismayed, indeed distressed, by our exchange at the morning meeting," he wrote. He said press reports were maliciously aimed at him, showing him to have cut an isolated figure in the MPs' discussion and "why on earth" would he leak reports that undermine his position. "It is obvious that some people have managed to persuade you that I have been speaking to the press against the party's interests. Nothing could be farther from the truth," he wrote, pointing to a campaign against him.