Shashi Tharoor clarified on calling George Soros a friend

Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor on Sunday clarified that he knows American investor George Soros “in a social sense” and the last time he met Mr. Soros was at Union Minister Hardeep Puri’s residence in New York. File | Photo Credit: ANI

Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor on Sunday (Dec 15, 2024) clarified that he knows American investor George Soros “in a social sense” and that he last met Mr. Soros when he was at Union Minister Hardeep Puri’s residence in New York. Mr. Puri was a diplomat.

The Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram took to social media platform X to issue this “clarification” after an earlier post in which he called Mr. Soros a friend went viral.

For the past several days, Parliament has been stalled after the BJP accused the Congress leadership of colluding with Mr. Soros to “destabilize” the Indian government.

Against this background, Mr. Tharoor’s May 26, 2009 post, calling Mr. Soros a friend, was used to target the Congress.

“As there is much unhealthy curiosity about this tweet, I knew Mr. Soros very well during my @UN (United Nations) days as a quintessentially international-minded resident of New York. He was a friend in a social sense: I never received any money from him or any of his foundations for my own or any organization or Not a single penny has been taken or demanded from the cause supported,” the Congress MP said on Sunday (December 15, 2024).

Explaining the rivalry of his meeting, Mr. Tharoor said, “I met Mr. Soros only once after this tweet, and that was at the home of the then Ambassador and now-BJP Minister @hardeepsppuri when I was visiting NY as Minister of State (Minister of State) for MEA”.

During that period Mr. Puri was the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations. “Amb Puri invited several prominent Americans for dinner discussions with me (and that was entirely appropriate). I have not been in contact with Mr. Soros since then, nor have I, and my former relationship had no political meaning,” Mr. Tharoor added.

However, the Congress MP said he hoped his latest post would “clarify the absurd allegations from a fifteen-year-old innocent tweet. But you know how the troll factory works. I have no doubt it won’t!”