Tharoor helps Sushma Swaraj write resolution on Jadhav death sentence

Political differences were buried for once as foreign minister Sushma Swaraj sought Congress leader Shashi Thaoor's help to draft a Parliament resolution condemning a Pakistani military court's death sentence to Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav on charges of spying.

Both Houses of Parliament are expected to adopt the resolution on Wednesday that the Congress MP for Thiruvananthapuram helped the BJP-led government write.

Parliamentarians of all parties in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha condemned the death sentence to Jadhav, who was allegedly arrested by Pakistani officials in March 2016 on suspicion of espionage. The MPs asked the government to take every step to help him.

For her part, foreign minister said in the Lok Sabha that Jadhav could not be a spy because he had a valid Indian visa.

Then she walked up to Tharoor, a successful career diplomat who was junior foreign minister in the previous UPA government. Swaraj asked if he



could help write the resolution.

The Congress MP took permission from the party's floor leader Mallikarjun Kharge, a vocal critic of the BJP and who had earlier questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Pakistan visit.

But Kharge promptly allowed Tharoor to help Swaraj, underscoring the unity between the government and Opposition on Jadhav.

"This is a matter that affects us all," Tharoor later told NDTV.

This is not the first time Tharoor has helped the Modi government. The Prime Minister picked Tharoor as a brand ambassador for the government's signature Swachh Bharat scheme, although the Congress mocked at the countrywide cleanliness drive as a photo-op.

On another occasion last year, the Modi government approached Tharoor to help draft a statement to condemn Pakistan for setting free terrorist Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the Lashkar-e-Taiba commander who masterminded the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.