Shashi Tharoor accuses ‘The Indian Express’ of misquoting him

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday accused The Indian Express of misrepresenting remarks that he made during a Malayalam podcast with the newspaper. In a series of posts on X, the Thiruvananthapuram MP accused the newspaper of “flagrantly irresponsible journalism”.

On February 23, Tharoor was quoted as having said during the podcast that he was available for the Congress, but if the party did not need his services, he had “options”. He was also quoted as saying that several party workers felt that there was “an absence of a leader in Kerala’s Congress”.

On Thursday, Tharoor said that The Indian Express had misrepresented an innocuous statement that he had made during the Malayalam podcast, while reporting on it in English. The Congress leader said he had remarked that he had multiple “options to spend my time” in literary pursuits, but the newspaper implied that he was exploring other political options.

On the purported statement about the absence of a leader in the Congress’ state unit, Tharoor said a video clip of the interview showed that he had said no such thing. The newspaper subsequently published a correction, saying that the remark had been inaccurately translated.

As per the updated article, the Congress MP had said: “We have many leaders, but many feel that there are no…

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