New Delhi: Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor, was absent from the meeting of Congress Lok Sabha MPs chaired by Rahul Gandhi on Friday. Party sources confirmed that Tharoor had informed the leadership in advance about his unavailability.

Another senior Congress MP, Manish Tiwari from Chandigarh, was also absent.

According to Tharoor’s social media timeline, he was attending an event hosted by the Prabha Khaitan Foundation in Kolkata the previous night.

Earlier, Tharoor had clarified that he did not intentionally skip the party’s strategic group meeting held on December 1, explaining that he was on a flight returning from Kerala at the time. “I did not skip it; I was on a plane, coming from Kerala,” he had said.

Tharoor’s absence from the meeting, chaired by Sonia Gandh

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