Yusuf Pathan drops out of ‘terror outreach’ delegation, TMC blames Centre

Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislator and ex-Indian cricketer Yusuf Pathan on Monday retracted his name from the all-party delegation set to visit international capitals conveying India’s position on Operation Sindoor worldwide. So far, Trinamool is the only party that has removed its MP from the delegation.

As per two TMC leaders, the party raised concerns about the government’s direct nomination of a TMC MP without prior consultation with the party. During a media interaction at Kolkata airport on Monday, Trinamool’s national general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee stated, “How can the Union government decide on the representative of Trinamool. They should have held discussions with the Opposition to decide which representative a party will send? How can the BJP decide which representative Trinamool will send? Trinamool is not boycotting the meeting? Trinamool is the only party which has not politicised the matter of national security.”

The Congress stated that parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju communicated with party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday morning, and by noon, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi responded with four names — ex-minister Anand Sharma, Congress’s deputy leader in Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi, Rajya Sabha MP Syed Naseer Hussain, and Lok Sabha MP Raja Brar.

However, the final list published by Rijiju on Saturday evening did not feature Gogoi, Hussain, or Brar. Instead, former Union ministers Tharoor, Manish Tewari, and Salman Khurshid, along with Fatehgarh MP Amar Singh – who were not nominated by the party – were mentioned. The Congress leadership, nonetheless, permitted its leaders to participate in the delegation due to the significance of the matter.

The party, however, charged the government with “utter insincerity” and engaging in “shallow political maneuvers” after just one of its four candidates—Anand Sharma—was selected for delegations to various world capitals to express India’s anti-terror position following Operation Sindoor.

As per a Trinamool leader, Rijiju initially contacted TMS’s Lok Sabha floor leader Sudip Bandopadhyay to participate in the delegation. He graciously declined it, mentioning health concerns. The government proceeded to reveal Yusuf Pathan’s name without discussing it with other TMC leaders. Pathan is a first-term MP from Baharampur, where he triumphed over Congress stalwart Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.