Shashi Tharoor on Sushma Swaraj speech : One cannot use UN as political platform

New Delhi: Shashi Tharoor, Congress leader on Tuesday hits back on BJP for criticising External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s UN address as a “campaign” speech saying one cannot hide behind the National flag and use UN as a political platform.

He also said, that he felt bit rich to be criticised by the BJP and also said Swaraj has mentioned Modi for 10 times and spoke about India only 5 times. He also questioned swaraj that address was a UN speech or BJP slogans, the first half of her speech was mentioning Modi’s vision for “New India” and discussing about Swachh Bharat Mission. He also tweeted about it.

BJP on Monday strongly reacted to his reported criticism of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s UN speech and had said that opposition of all political parties speaking in the same voice on India’s stand abroad.

Sudhanshu Trivedi, BJP spokesperson said the congress in being increasingly seen to be standing with Pakistan as Tharoor’s statement was not an isolated incident and the opposition party often spoke the language of neighbouring country.

He told that, congress should apologize to the country and said it stand on various issues appeared similar to that of Pakistan.”There has been a established convention in politics since independence that political parties are unanimous on foreign issues, at least when it comes to taking a stand at the UN where India’s position is not of a political party”.

He also did the Congress has lost the “moral right” to claim to be the party of Mahatma Gandhi, wondering if the Congress in zeal to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also opposing the country.