Indian media reports that popular parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor and the Congress Party may be headed for splitsville are not surprising. What is surprising is that it has taken them this long.

Of course, there is nothing official to suggest that Dr. Tharoor may be contemplating leaving  the party that he joined in 2009 but there are media murmurings. So far It is entirely possible that he may not leave the party at all. However, since October 2022, when he contested in the party’s internal elections for Congress president against Mallikarjun Kharge, the candidate handpicked by the materfamilias Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, Tharoor’s future has been murky.

Known and often targeted for his candor, Tharoor has always been a presence in the Congress Party that has felt like it is perpetually on the verge of coming unstuck.

The party leadership was reported to be displeased with him having taken a generally positive view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington. He was guardedly appreciative about the way Modi and his team dealt with Trump.

"Some of the important outcomes of PM Modi's meeting with President Trump is that there are good things for Indian people. To my mind, it appears that something good has been achieved, and I applaud that as an Indian. In this particular case, I am speaking solely in the national interest," he was quoted as saying.

Not always aligned with party position

Later, as discomfort grew within the Congress Party over his assessment, he said, "We can't always speak only in terms of party interest. I am not a party spokesperson, I am an MP elected by the people of Thiruvananthapuram and on that basis I speak as an important stakeholder in Indian democracy.”

Tharoor followed that up with mild and limited praise for some policies of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) government in Kerala. He wrote about that in the New Indian Express newspaper. Apparently, that too has not gone down well with the Congress Party.

Tharoor clarified his position on X saying, “Somewhat bemused by the raging controversy in Kerala over my article in the @NewIndianXpress. First of all, I wrote it as a Kerala MP on one specific subject, the changed industrial climate as evidenced by the start-up ecosystem alone. As a Congressman, I am proud that this builds on an initiative undertaken by former chief minister @OomenChandy, who established the Start-Up Village and the State’s Start-Up Mission in the first place — which the present government has built upon. Second, the article does not seek to be a survey of the entire Kerala economy, which remains in dire straits, as I have repeatedly pointed out —featuring high unemployment; massive out-migration, especially of educated youth; crisis in agriculture, esp the rubber, cashew, pineapple and rubber sectors; and a record level of debt.”

Tharoor is acutely aware that he is not particularly liked by the Congress leadership, especially the Gandhi family because of his independence. Things have come to a stage where even Tharoor posting a selfie of him with India’s Minister for Commerce and Industries Piyush Goyal and Britain’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds is seen as unfurling the red flag.

Impressive intellectual and writerly credentials

Notwithstanding his problems with his party, Tharoor’s options in terms of where else he might be more valued are not many. There has been persistent speculation, which is mostly wishful thinking within Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), that he may join it. Given his very public elucidation of his liberal ideology for decades in alignment with the Congress Party Tharoor in the BJP would be a misfit on arrival. The BJP’s political ecosystem is not conducive to an urbane internationalist like him, prone to neologism and with his impressive intellectual and writerly credentials, as well as his vast experience as a top United Nations diplomat who very nearly became its secretary-general.

The most obvious role tailor-made for Tharoor is that of India’s foreign minister, a position firmly saddled by Dr. S. Jaishankar. Tharoor has served as junior foreign minister in the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Despite his problems with the Congress Party, Tharoor knows that the BJP will be a wholly acquired political taste and that it is too unpleasant for his calibrated temperament.

Now into his fourth term as a Congress Party MP from Kerala, Tharoor, who is very popular with the urban youth and has a huge social media following, appears to have arrived at a crossroads after being frequently at cross-purposes with the Congress leadership.  There are those who say he might be better off forsaking the debasing dubieties of party politics for the edifying glories of the literary world that celebrates him.

(The writer is a Chicago-based journalist, writer, filmmaker and commentator. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at mcsix@outlook.com)