"Our Recollections Differ": Shashi Tharoor On Hardeep Puri's George Soros Claim

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday refuted Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri's claims regarding the former insisting the inclusion of billionaire George Soros in an invite list to a 2009 dinner in the US.

Mr Tharoor said his and Mr Puri's recollections of the dinner hosted by the latter during his tenure as the Indian Ambassador to the US differ. "I was completely unaware of any Mr Soros having any connection to any foundation in India - and have never discussed it with him either. All I remember hearing from him at that occasion was his strong objection to our government's stand on the West's responsibility for global warming," The Thiruvananthapuram MP wrote in a post on X.

The matter began on December 15 when an X user who identified himself as a BJP worker from Karnataka showed Mr Tharoor an old post from 2009 in which Mr Tharoor wrote, "Met old friend George Soros, upbeat about India and curious about our neighbourhood. He's far more than an investor: a concerned world citizen."

On Friday, Mr Puri responded to Mr Tharoor's post on X that he met US billionaire George Soros at a formal dinner at the former's New York home. Mr Puri indicated the Congress MP did not show the whole picture - he said it was Mr Tharoor himself who gave the list of invitees for the dinner, and the "gentleman in question was among the benefactors of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and the Minister of State was keen to meet him."

Mr Puri went on to say that it became clear in retrospect that Mr Soros was an invitee because he was among the benefactors of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. He added that that was why Mr Tharoor, then Minister of State External Affairs, wanted to meet him.