If you did not spot Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in Parliament today, it's probably because he is licking his wounds in private. The MP from Thiruvananthapuram earned a sharp rap on the knuckles from Congress president Sonia Gandhi after his comments at a party meeting went public.


Tharoor had reportedly said yesterday he was not in favour of disrupting Parliament over the party's demand for the resignations of EAM Sushma Swaraj and Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje over their links to Lalit Modi.


An NDTV report says that an angry Sonia Gandhi told Tharoor in the presence of other partymen, "You always do this, it's become a habit with you."


Even as embarrassed Congress MPs looked on, party vice-president Rahul Gandhi tried some damage control by changing the subject and ushered the MPs out of the room.


Tharoor has been the Congress cross hairs earlier as well for being more outspoken than most MPs. As MoS External Affairs when the UPA government was in power in 2009, Tharoor ran into trouble for posting a message on Twitter, in which he said he would travel cattle class in solidarity with all our holy cows.


A file picture of Shashi Tharoor in conversation with Sonia Gandhi.