Today in Politics: As Congress’s woes pile up, can it calm things down?

So, where does the Congress go from here? Can it afford to cast aside a leader such as Tharoor, have a public fallout like this? No matter what the party brass thinks of his value in the realpolitik matrix of Kerala polls that are due next year, leaders like Tharoor also have their uses, and it is not a sound strategy to push him into the arms of the BJP. Moreover, can it introspect on its approach to the entire matter?

As Manoj CG writes in his Capital Column this week, “Having handled the days following the Pahalgam terror attack well, standing in full solidarity with the government and reining in its motormouths, the Congress has let all that flow out of the window. The most glaring example has been the party’s response to the all-party delegations chosen by the government to present India’s case against Pakistan abroad.

“If that was a canny move by a government not known to cede space to the Opposition, the Congress — rather than recognising when it is beat — has been churlish, starting with picking at names of its leaders chosen by the government for the teams.”

Manoj also writes: “The most unseeming spectacle has been the sniping between the Congress’s own leaders and Tharoor who, by all accounts, is the star speaker of the delegations. As this plays out publicly on social media, it is being amplified by the party’s communications department, with apparently no efforts to check the same. Many wondered why the party then allowed its leaders to be part of the all-party government exercise in the first place.”

Second, the Congress also has a problem on its hands in Karnataka, where several of its Muslim leaders have resigned over a spurt in communal attacks in the state’s Dakshina Kannada district, report Akram M and Kiran Parashar. These leaders and party workers are angry with the state home ministry headed by G Parameshwara, accusing it of failing to curb these incidents. The government has set up a Special Action Force to curb communal crimes in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, and Shivamogga.

Two different problems, but both carry the potential to hurt the Congress. Given this situation, can the country’s largest Opposition party then get over petty squabbles and focus on the matters at hand and amicably resolve them? These will be among the things to watch out for on Friday.

What’s happening today:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to wind up his tour of Bihar with a rally in Rohtas district, where he will also unveil development projects worth more than Rs 48,000 crore. He will then head to Kanpur to lay the foundation stone of 15 development projects worth over Rs 47,573 crore and inaugurate the new underground section of Kanpur Metro.
• Union Home Minister Amit Shah will travel to Poonch, which took the most hits and suffered the most casualties during Pakistani shelling earlier this month. There, Shah will distribute appointment letters among the next of kin of civilians killed in the shelling. He is also likely to address Border Security Force personnel, reports Arun Sharma.
• A section of section of teachers in West Bengal who have been agitating before the state education headquarters for the past 22 days, demanding that they should not be forced to sit for a fresh recruitment test, have threatened to take out a rally to the state secretariat to press their demands. The condition of the teachers found a mention in PM Modi’s speech in Alipurduar on Thursday as he targeted the Mamata Banerjee government over corruption.