The Mahal Empowerment Mission (MEM), a collective of Muslim Jamaaths in the state capital, decided on Friday to exclude senior Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor from their Palestine solidarity event scheduled for October 30. This decision came in light of the controversy surrounding Mr. Tharoor’s recent statement at a Palestine solidarity rally organized by the Indian Union Muslim League, where he referred to the October 7 attack on Israel as a terrorist strike.
MEM, which represents Jamaaths from 100 wards in the city corporation, has communicated to Tharoor their decision to remove him from the program. In response to the social media backlash, Mr. Tharoor clarified that he has always supported the people of Palestine and disagreed with the way a single sentence from his speech at the IUML rally was portrayed.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), a key ally of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, organized a large rally in Kozhikode, denouncing the reported indiscriminate killings of civilians in Gaza. Mr. Tharoor, who was the chief guest at the event, emphasized the need to end the conflict while also condemning the attack carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7 as an ‘act of terror.’
