Tharoor promises to behave

NEW DELHI: Shashi Tharoor, who is more known for triggering controversies rather than cogent policy interventions, on Tuesday told the Congress leadership that he would not take an exaggerated view of his ministerial assignment and comment on critical issues.

Mr Tharoor, who met Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi to explain his outrageous remarks inviting Saudi Arabia to play the interlocutor in the India-Pakistan relations, is learnt to have told the Congress that such indiscretion will not be repeated.

After the Opposition kicked up a row over the Saudi statement of the junior minister, Congress had privately expressed its annoyance with the minister.

Important government functionaries, who accompanied the prime minister in the Saudi Arabia trip, had chastised the minister for his controversial remark. The import of the prime ministerial visit also got drowned in the din created by Mr Tharoor’s statement.

New Delhi has consistently opposed third party mediation in Indo-Pak relations. In his interaction with the media, the minister had said that New Delhi considered Saudi Arabia a valuable interlocutor. When the controversy broke out, the minister quickly tweeted an unconvincing argument that interlocutor and mediator are two different things.

But for the record, Mr Dwivedi said that Mr Tharoor’s trip to the Congress headquarters was for a scheduled meeting. “The time was fixed before he left for Saudi Arabia,” he said. Mr Dwivedi also said that there was no confusion over Tharoor’s statement and his explanation.