Congress ticket to Congress critic: Sunil Sharma’s link to Jaipur Dialogues stumps Shashi Tharoor

Two days after the Congress announced Sunil Sharma as its candidate for the Jaipur Lok Sabha seat, a controversy erupted over his candidature after his association with The Jaipur Dialogues, a right-wing organisation known for ridiculing Congress and its leaders, came to light.

In its latest list of candidates announced on Thursday, the Congress named Sharma from Jaipur, where he is known for his and his family’s long association with Congress as well as for being the Chairman and Chancellor of the private Suresh Gyan Vihar University (SGVU) in Jaipur.

However, overshadowing this was his association with The Jaipur Dialogues, which identifies itself as a “platform for the right thinking people”, and was launched in 2016 by the now retired IAS officer Sanjay Dixit.

Soon, Congress workers and supporters asked the party to reconsider its decision to field Sharma.

Party MP Shashi Tharoor said, “He must have undergone some sort of Pauline epiphany on the road to 24 Akbar! This is just one of several dozen tweets from his handle attacking me.” Tharoor quoted a tweet from the Jaipur Dialogues handle which had said that “Shashi Tharoor is just Rahul Gandhi with a thesaurus he stole from a library on his way out!”

When The Indian Express reached out to Sharma at his residence, Sharma refused to take any questions. Later, he issued a statement claiming that he parted ways with Jaipur Dialogues long ago.

“I have never had anything to do with the management of the Jaipur Dialogue YouTube channel. I am often invited on all news channels and YouTube channels as a panellist on building an inclusive India as per the Congress philosophy. In the same sequence, the Jaipur Dialogue YouTube channel had definitely invited me to speak on various