Shashi Tharoor Skips Meeting At Sonia Gandhi’s Residence Ahead Of Budget Session; Misses Congress Meeting 2nd Time In 4 Days

New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday skipped another top-level party meeting. The meeting was chaired by former party president Sonia Gandhi. The agenda of the meeting was to discuss the strategy for the Budget Session of Parliament, which begins on Wednesday.

Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, Sonia Gandhi and Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi were present. Other senior leaders in attendance included P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, Pramod Tiwari and Manish Tewari.

Reportedly, Tharoor is abroad at a literature festival in Dubai and will return later tonight. He had informed the party of his non-availability, NDTV reported, quoting sources.

Earlier last week, Tharoor did not attend a meeting to discuss the April Assembly elections in Kerala. Tharoor is the Congress’ Lok Sabha MP from the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram, a seat he has held since 2009.

Upset over 'lack of respect'

Reportedly, Tharoor was 'upset' with Rahul Gandhi over a 'lack of respect' shown to him during the latter’s visit to Kerala. He also skipped three meetings between November and December.

Reportedly, the Congress top leadership is likely to meet Tharoor to resolve his grievances. The party leadership wants to ensure unity ahead of the Kerala elections, in which it believes the opposition alliance, the United Democratic Front (UDF), has a strong chance of dislodging the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) and forming the government.