New Delhi:
Shashi Tharoor on Friday attributed AISA chief Neha Bora's joining the INDIA bloc protest march against alleged election irregularities to the Congress' 'moderate' credentials. "It's about acceptance," he said at the NDTV World Summit.
The Congress MP also described the Left's cooperation with the party on several issues as an example of Opposition unity.
Bora, the chief of the Left-leaning student group, has become the face of the agitation against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in the national capital. Her social media reels, in which she often criticises the central government, garner millions of views. She participated in the INDIA bloc's protest march earlier this month and was seen walking beside Congress top brass, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Tharoor said she brought energy, colours and life to the agitation.
"Of course these parties have their value, but Neha Bora wasn't campaigning against us. I like her, I like her. She's brought a lot of energy, colour, and life into the protest, the movement. But it's about the Congress being a moderate party and about acceptance. Why does the Congress need the Left? It's opposition unity," he said.
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"Look at 1977...Prime Minister Narendra Modi does keep talking about the Emergency and how the Emergency was overthrown. How was it overthrown? Through opposition, where the friends of the RSS and the BJP were merging with socialists and leftists and people from the Left as well. They were all united in order to defeat the government that had declared the Emergency. That's recent Indian political history, just half a century ago. Why shouldn't we make common cause with parties we disagree with? We don't agree with the Left on economics; we don't agree with the Left on Kerala politics, but we agree with the Left on some of the undemocratic methods being followed in Delhi that we believe need to be resisted. We're resisting them together," he added.
He also backed the people's right to protest peacefully.
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"It is that peaceful protest is the democratic right of every Indian citizen. Violence is not. What we've seen happening in France is not something that anybody in India's political space would condone. I don't, and I don't think my party in any way would welcome it. We believe in peaceful, organised, and disciplined protest. At the same time, we expect that we can actually find the government willing to be accountable for the deep irregularities through the SIR process in the last couple of years. We believe that with proper accountability there will be once again a clean system: the electoral rules will be restored, no Indian citizen will be deprived of their constitutional right to cast their vote and determine their own political choices, and in a free and fair election there will not be regime change. There will be government change because the Indian public has seen, I think, the inadequacies of the present government, but we want to bring that about through free and fair elections," he added.
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Tharoor also rejected the BJP's allegation that Rahul Gandhi is a non-serious politician.
On Thursday, PM Modi, speaking at the NDTV World Summit, took a swipe at the Congress leader without naming him.
"I don't know how long the Congress will continue to put the country at stake for the launch of its failed product. (The Satish Dhawan Space Centre at) Sriharikota does not see as many launches as the Congress tries, unsuccessfully, to launch its leader in a year," he said.
Tharoor countered PM Modi, saying Gandhi has ignited enthusiasm in the party's workers and young voters.
"I can tell you that I think Rahul Gandhi has ignited an enthusiasm, particularly amongst younger voters in the last few months, which I think the BJP would be well advised to sit up and pay attention to," he said, alleging that the BJP is trying to "demonise him".