Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has once again publicly praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a detailed post on X, the Thiruvananthapuram MP highlighted multiple points from the Prime Minister’s speech, prompting fresh speculation about his strained relationship with Congress leadership.

Tharoor wrote that the Prime Minister, in a private event in Delhi, spoke about India’s “constructive impatience” for development, emphasising the need for the country to shed its post-colonial mindset. According to Tharoor, the Prime Minister stressed that India has evolved from being seen as merely an “emerging market” to becoming an “emerging model” for the world, especially after demonstrating economic resilience during the pandemic and amid global conflicts like the war in Ukraine.

The Congress MP quoted PM Modi as saying he was often “accused of being in 'election mode' all the time, but he was really in 'emotional mode' to redress the problems of the people”, driven by the desire to solve people’s concerns. Tharoor noted that a significant portion of the PM’s speech focused on undoing Thomas Macaulay’s two-century-old colonial influence on India’s education system, arguing that it created a “slave mentality” and eroded cultural confidence.

Tharoor wrote that the Prime Minister appealed for a 10-year national mission to revive pride in India’s languages, heritage, and indigenous knowledge systems. He described the overall speech as both an economic vision and a cultural call to action, adding, “Glad to have been in the audience.”

Visuals from the event showed Tharoor seated comfortably between BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad and former Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad, further fuelling political chatter.

Tharoor’s renewed appreciation for the Prime Minister is expected to raise eyebrows within Congress, particularly since he has been offering positive remarks about Modi with increasing frequency. His relationship with the party has been under visible strain in recent months, especially after he led an opposition delegation to the United States and other nations following the Pahalgam terror attack. His interactions with the Prime Minister during that period triggered further speculation about a potential political repositioning.