‘Comments speak for themselves’: Shashi Tharoor stands his ground over India’s position on Ukraine-Russia conflict

NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday reaffirmed his stand on India’s diplomatic stance and said that his earlier comments speak for themselves and that there was nothing to add. “The comments speak for themselves. Nothing to add”, Tharoor said.

Earlier, in a panel discussion at the Raisina Dialogue, Tharoor admitted to wiping ‘egg off his face’ and conceding that India’s diplomatic stance gave the country a unique position to be friendly with both Russia and Ukraine, two nations at war since 2022.

#WATCH | Delhi | On his comments, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor says, ” The comments speak for themselves. Nothing to add.” pic.twitter.com/Sl3KkQ6W2q

— ANI (@ANI) March 19, 2025

“I am still wiping the egg off my face because I was one person in the parliamentary debate who actually criticised the Indian position at the time back in February 2022”, Tharoor said.

Reacting to this, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Malviya took a dig at Congress leader and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi, saying that Tharoor’s remarks would likely leave him “red-faced”.

“This will likely leave Rahul Gandhi red-faced, with the Congress media department scrambling to clarify that Shashi Tharoor’s remarks reflect his personal views — not the party’s official stance — despite Tharoor having led the party’s charge on the issue in Parliament”, he posted on X.

This will likely leave Rahul Gandhi red faced, with the Congress media department scrambling to clarify that Shashi Tharoor’s remarks reflect his personal views—not the party’s official stance—despite Tharoor having led the party’s charge on the issue in Parliament.

Congress… pic.twitter.com/zrU7xb5TYx

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) March 19, 2025

“Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has admitted he was wrong in opposing India’s neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. He acknowledged that India’s diplomatic balance has given Prime Minister Narendra Modi the unique position of being able to engage with both Ukraine and Russia without hostility”, Malviya added.

Explaining his reasoning for condemning the war, Tharoor had said, “On the well worn grounds that Espen (Norway’s Foreign Minister) will understand because he and I talked about all this in my UN days, that there was a violation of the UN Charter, sovereignty of a member state, namely Ukraine, and we had always stood for the that there had been a violation of the principle of the inviolability of borders of a sovereign state, inadmissibility of the use of force to settle international disputes and all of those principles had been violated by one party, and we should have condemned it”.

“Well, three years later, it does look like I am the one with egg on my face because clearly, the policy has meant that India actually has a Prime Minister who can hug both the President of Ukraine and the President of Moscow two weeks apart and be accepted in both places and therefore India is in a position where it can make a difference to a lasting peace if it was so required in ways that very few countries would be able to”, Tharoor added.

Russia had invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, since then, United States President has been having “productive conversations” with the Russian President Vladamir Putin, talking about a ceasefire, and ending the “horrible war,” as said by President Trump on Truth Social. (ANI)