Congress moved Left in recent years to take on BJP, claims Shashi Tharoor

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said the party has in recent years become more Leftist as it seeks to counter the divisive politics of BJPResponding to a question on whether the Congress and the Left parties coming together against the BJPs politics represented radical centrism in action Tharoor who delivered a lecture on Radical Centrism earlier said his remarks were not about nuts and bolts practical politics but convictions and ideology where some gaps needed to be bridgedBut tactical adjustments have been made more and more In fact in some ways one of the consequences is that my party has become a much more sort of Left party than it used to beIn the sense that if you look at the party of say Dr Manmoban Singh you could argue it was more consciously centrist in its approach It borrowed from some of the policies of the predecessor BJP government Tharoor said at the event on Thursday nightThe Wayanad MP recalled that the Congress had established some of the policies in the early 1990s under thenPrime Minister Narasimha Rao which the BJP followed when it came to power a few years laterIt can be argued that there was a centrist phase between 1991 and 2009 which arguably started changing thereafter he saidCertainly in the last few years in opposition Congress has become much more of a Leftist party than it used to be in the earlier days Whether that is tactical adjustment or philosophical conviction or whatever remains to be seen he saidTharoor clarified however that what he was advocating went beyond immediate tactical adjustments at the political seat levelTharoor on Thursday delivered the Jyoti Komireddi Memorial Lecture on Radical Centrism My vision for IndiaAsked if he would contest again for the post of AICC president Tharoor said he does not see himself contesting again unless the circumstances are very differentI had some experiences in contesting that election which I am not prepared to talk about publicly just now but which did not give me any inducements to repeat that experiment he saidHe is glad still that the Congress had a process and a system under which it was possible to contest Tharoor saidInner party democracy is extremely important not only in the Congress but every party in the country he saidTharoor said he also believes in term limits for party officebearers and that nobody should hold office for an indefinite period of time in any partyOn the car blast near the Red Fort in Delhi on Monday evening Tharoor said he does not want to second guess what the government will do but a terrorist attack is something that cannot go unpunishedThe government has said it will hunt down the perpetrators It is extremely important to protect citizens he saidOn US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessents comments that the vision is to bring in skilled overseas workers who train Americans and then go back home Tharoor said it will be seen how it is implemented in practiceFrom Indias point of view we are very happy to encourage our people to gain experience outside to earn a good income but we certainly want them to come back to our country We are not here to promote permanent migration elsewhere he saidHe is in favour of Indians bringing their experience expertise higher technologies to the country to help in its own progress Tharoor saidSo if the Americans say that come and work for a few years and go back Im not going to oppose that I would love to have them come back and work in India he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever