Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said the party has in recent years become more Leftist as it seeks to counter the "divisive politics" of BJP. Responding to a question whether Congress and Left parties coming together against the BJP's politics represented 'radical centrism' in action, Tharoor, who delivered a lecture on 'radical centrism' earlier , Tharoor said his remarks were not about "nuts and bolts practical politics" but convictions and ideology, where some gaps needed to be bridged. "But, tactical adjustments have been made more and more. In fact, in some ways, one of the consequences is my party has become a much more, sort of, Left party than it used to be. In the sense that, if you look at the party of say Dr Manmoban Singh, you could argue it was more consciously centrist in its approach. It borrowed from some of the policies of the predecessor BJP government," he said at the event Thursday night.
He recalled that the Congress had established some of the policies in the early 1990s under then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, which the BJP followed when it came to power a few years later. It can be argued that there was a centrist phase between 1991 and 2009 which arguably started changing thereafter, he said. "Certainly, in the last few years in opposition, Congress has certainly become much more of a Leftist party than it used to be in the earlier days. Whether that is tactical adjustment or philosophical conviction or whatever remains to be seen," he said. He clarified, however, that what he was advocating went beyond immediate tactical adjustments at the political seat level, he added.