“Reducing his (Advani’s) long years of service to one episode, however significant, is also unfair,” Tharoor said on X, after a lawyer pointed apparently towards Advani’s Rath Yatra, which is seen as a catalyst for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya where a Ram Mandir now stands after the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“The totality of Nehruji’s career cannot be judged by the China setback, nor Indira Gandhi’s by the Emergency alone. I believe we should extend the same courtesy to Advaniji,” Tharoor argued in reply to lawyer Sanjay Hegde on X.

“Sorry Mr Tharoor, unleashing the ‘dragon seeds of hatred’ (to quote Khushwant Singh) in this country is not public service,” Hegde had commented on Tharoor’s original birthday post for Advani.

Writer-journalist Khushwant Singh had said, “Mr Advani, you sowed the dragon seeds of hatred in this country,” directly to the BJP leader at a public meeting where Advani was the chief guest and Khushwant Singh was presiding. The quote is also mentioned in Khushwant Singh’s book, ‘The End of India’.

In his birthday wishes for Advani, Tharoor shared an old photo of his with the former deputy PM, and said the BJP leader’s “unwavering commitment to public service, his modesty & decency, and his role in shaping the trajectory of modern India are indelible”.

Describing Advani as “a true statesman”, Tharoor said his “life of service has been exemplary”.

Tharoor has been far from agreeable with his party, the main opposition Congress, particularly since PM Narendra Modi’s BJP-led NDA regime made him part of delegations of MPs for global diplomatic outreach after Operation Sindoor against Pakistan.

More recently, he wrote an article listing the Nehru-Gandhi family as an example of dynastic politics that’s determinantal to merit. He did not cited any example from BJP leaders’ families in that write-up, and earned praise from the party.

“The influence of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty… is bound up with the history of India’s struggle for freedom. But it has also cemented the idea that political leadership can be a birthright…” he wrote, giving ammunition to the BJP in the midst of the assembly election in Bihar.

BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla called the Congress MP a “khatron ke khiladi” (playing with danger) for directly calling out “nepo kid” Rahul Gandhi. BJP national Spokesperson CR Kesavan also called the article a “truth bomb”. “After his veiled attack on the Nehru-Gandhi family’s stranglehold, Rahul Gandhi should respond to this truth bomb of Shashi Tharoor,” he told ANI.