Shashi Tharoor sacked as Congress spokesperson

The Congress Monday removed Shashi Tharoor as one of its spokesperson for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In a statement, the party said: "Congress President Sonia Gandhi has accepted the recommendation of AICC (All India Congress Committee) disciplinary committee to remove Shashi Tharoor from the list of spokespersons of the AICC with immediate effect."

The action was taken after the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) submitted a complaint to the disciplinary committee of the party.

The three-member disciplinary action committee of AICC comprised Motilal Vora, A.K. Antony and Sushilkumar Shinde.

Tharoor, Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala, had been criticised by party colleagues for praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He was also one of the nine people nominated by Modi for his Clean India Campaign challenge, which he accepted to the displeasure of many in the party.

According to sources, a report of the Kerala unit held that Tharoor's statements about Modi had hurt party workers, who worked for his victory in Thiruvananthapuram.

Since Tharoor is an AICC member, the state unit of the party could not take action against him and a decision had to be taken by the national leadership.

Tharoor, who was a union minister in the erstwhile Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, was also dragged into a controversy recently when a leaked post-mortem report of his wife Sunanda Pushkar stated "poisoning" as the cause of her death.

Pushkar was found dead amid mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in Delhi Jan 17.