And where there is disquiet within the Congress, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party isn’t far behind.
BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari snapped back on X Friday morning, declaring: “Congress exposes Congress… Congress MP exposes ‘naraz fufa‘ of Congress opposing BRICS on instructions of Rahul Gandhi!”
What happened?
The ex-Union Finance Minister told ANI: “I don’t care how many Presidents and how many Prime Ministers are coming. I don’t think the last two or three BRICS summits have resulted in tangible benefits or results.”
Chidamabaram pointed out that India is a member of several such groupings, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the G20, and the Quad, and asked what each had done for the Indian economy and national security interests.
That was on Wednesday.
One of the responses came from Shashi Tharoor.
The Lok Sabha MP countered that the number of world leaders – including Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as well as Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian – underlined India’s diplomatic clout on the global stage.
In conversation with news agency PTI, Tharoor also praised India positioning itself as a key member of the Global South – a political and economic term for developing or lower-income nations, most of which share a history of being colonised.
“… here (at the BRICS summit) we have 11 key players from the Global South who collectively represent much of the diversity of views, as well as the range of countries that we are essentially chairing on this particular occasion. This grouping represents a majority of the world’s population and 41 per cent of global GDP.”
The summit, he said, “is a matter of great prestige for us. It shows a certain diplomatic convening power, which has value in and of itself on the global stage. It’s not a small matter. It’s something that has to be taken very seriously by the rest of the world.”
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To be fair, he also pointed to challenges, including the need to generate a consensus among partners with significantly differing views, particularly on wars in Ukraine and Iran, and its impact on the global economy. The reference was to BRICS nations’ foreign ministers meeting in May, when Iran and the UAE – on either side of the fence over the war – held up a joint declaration.
Tharoor and the Congress
Shashi Tharoor and the Congress haven’t had the warmest of relationships over the past year; the likely trigger for this unease was the government naming him in delegations to friendly and partner nations after Operation Sindoor – India’s military response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025.
Tharoor accepted the invitation and a furious Congress – targeting the PM for his handling of the attack and India’s response – saw it as a ‘betrayal’ of the party line.
Since then rows have been frequent and intense; there was one over his praise for the Prime Minister – whom he called a ‘prime asset for India’ – in an article published in a newspaper in June 2025, and similarly glowing notes about his administration.
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And in August 2026 the two were at it again, this time over Shashi Tharoor’s remarks that ‘established parties will cease to be relevant unless they can listen to new voices’.
That trigger was a question about the Congress’ apparent inability to mobilise support from younger voters on a scale similar to the Cockroach Janta Party.
The Lok Sabha MP has repeatedly said his comments are neither signs of his unhappiness with the Congress, nor an indication he wants to jump to the BJP.
In June last year – while in Moscow as part of the Op Sindoor delegation – he said praise for the Prime Minister did not mean he was ‘leaping to join his party… as some people have been implying… It is a statement of national unity…’
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The clarification, though, did not ease tensions. In fact, it has carried on since, exploding at intervals and when Tharoor offers something apart from criticism.
