New Delhi, August 28, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
The Congress on Friday backed party MP Shashi Tharoor’s remarks praising India’s democratic resilience amid recent Gen Z-led protests, while the BJP criticised the Thiruvananthapuram MP, saying his views were shaped by his political surroundings in Kerala.
Tharoor had said a day earlier that the “Indian system bent, didn’t break” in the face of recent youth protests and credited the country’s political system for absorbing the pressure without a breakdown.
Congress spokesperson Atul Londhe said the party deserved credit for building strong democratic institutions in the country.
“I will proudly give the credit for this to Congress. If we have given something to the country in 70 years, that is a strong democracy and strong democratic institutions despite attempts being made to weaken these in the past 12 years, whether it is the RBI, judicial system, bureaucracy or use of ED, CBI etc.,” Londhe told IANS.
He said the ability of students to express their reactions through democratic means demonstrated the resilience of the system.
“Only because of a strong democracy, students could react like this; otherwise, we have seen in other countries how people violently react after their trust in the system breaks,” Londhe said, adding that Tharoor’s assessment was correct.
The BJP, however, took a different view. BJP MP Dinesh Sharma said, “Shashi Tharoor’s thoughts are different; he stays among the communists in Kerala.”
Sharma also said Gen Z represented a key focus area for the BJP, pointing to initiatives including Startup India, Stand-Up India, Make in India and Digital India as platforms aimed at benefiting young people.
He added that political opinions could differ but claimed the BJP continued to work for Gen Z, which he also linked to the “Bal Swayamsevak” of the RSS and youth wing members of the BJP.
Tharoor made his remarks on Thursday while speaking at the NDTV World Anviksha Summit, where he compared the responses of political systems across South Asia to youth-led protests over the past decade.
He noted that Pakistan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India had all witnessed significant protests involving young people in recent years. The key difference, he said, lay in the political systems of these countries and how their establishments responded to the protests.
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