Congress MP Shashi Tharoor was among the group of 23 senior leaders, who wrote a letter to
Sonia Gandhi, seeking organisational overhaul. However, this step of his did
not bode well with some leaders in Kerala. Hitting out at Tharoor, Kerala
Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) working president and party’s chief whip in
the Lok Sabha, Kodikkunnil Suresh on Friday called Tharoor a ‘guest artist’ and
asked him to follow party policies.

“Shashi Tharoor
is certainly not a politician. He came to the Congress party as a guest artist.
He is still continuing in the party like a guest artist,” news agency PTI
quoted Suresh as saying.

Lashing out at
Tharoor, the former union minister also said, “Tharoor may be a global
citizen”, but he should not think that he can take any decision or say
anything according to his will.

“Ultimately, he
should follow the party (policies and programmes)”, Suresh added.

However, according to media
reports, Suresh later retracted his statement.

His statement came a
day after Tharoor said that it is the duty of all to work together in the
interest of the Congress once the party chief has stated that the matter is
“behind us”.

“Ive been silent
for 4 days on recent events in @INCIndia because once the Congress President
says the issue is behind us, it is the duty of all of us to work together
constructively in the interests of the Party,” Tharoor tweeted on
Thursday.

“I urge all my
colleagues to uphold this principle & end the debate,” he said in the
tweet.

Earlier on Thursday,
former KPCC President and Lok Sabha MP K Muraleedharan had also taken a dig at
Tharoor over the issue, calling him a “global citizen”.

Leaders in the
Congress’s state unit are also upset with Tharoor over his open support to the
Centre’s move to lease out Thiruvananthapuram International Airport for 50
years to Adani Enterprises.

“The people want
the airport. It’s some politicians who are opposed to it,” Tharoor had
said while all political parties in Kerala, barring the BJP, opposed the
Centre’s decision to give the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to Adani
Enterprises on lease.