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Yusuf Pathan drops out of ‘terror outreach’ delegation, TMC blames Centre
Yusuf Pathan's name was included without consulting the party, Trinamool Congress said.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) lawmaker and former Indian cricketer Yusuf Pathan on Monday withdrew his name from the all-party delegation that will visit international capitals disseminating India’s stance on Operation Sindoor across the globe. Trinamool is the only party so far to withdraw its MP from the delegation.
According to two TMC leaders, the party objected to the way the government directly nominated a TMC MP without consulting the party.
Speaking to media persons at the Kolkata airport on Monday, Trinamool national general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee said, “How can the Union government decide on the representative of Trinamool. They should have held discussions with the Opposition to decide which representative a party will send? How can the BJP decide which representative Trinamool will send? Trinamool is not boycotting the meeting? Trinamool is the only party which has not politicised the matter of national security.”
The Congress said parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju spoke to party chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday morning, and by noon, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi wrote back with four names -- former minister Anand Sharma, Congress's deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, Rajya Sabha MP Syed Naseer Hussain, and Lok Sabha MP Raja Brar.
But the final list released by Rijiju on Saturday night didn’t include Gogoi, Hussain or Brar. Instead, former Union ministers Tharoor, Manish Tewari and Salman Khurshid, and Fatehgarh MP Amar Singh – who weren’t nominated by the party – were named. The Congress leadership, however, allowed its leaders to join the delegation given the importance of the issue.
However, the party accused the government of “complete insincerity” and playing “cheap political games” after only one of its four nominees—Anand Sharma--for delegations to be sent to world capitals to articulate India’s anti-terror stance post-Operation Sindoor were chosen.
According to a Trinamool leader, Rijiju had first approached TMS's Lok Sabha floor leader Sudip Bandopadhyay to join the delegation. He politely refused it, citing health issues. The government went ahead and announced Yusuf Pathan’s name without consulting any other TMC leaders.
Pathan is the first time MP from Baharampur where he defeated Congress heavyweight Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
