Shashi Tharoor, Congress candidate from Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala, on Wednesday said the alternative to Narendra Modi as prime minister in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections “is a group of experienced, capable and diverse Indian leaders” who, according to him, will be responsive to people’s problems.

Shashi Tharoor’s X (formally Twitter) post comes days after the Congress leader accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of hijacking democracy and urged other political parties to fight together to defeat it in the coming general election. He also argued that the BJP cannot repeat the same performance as in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when it won 303 seats and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by it, won 353 seats.

On Wednesday, Tharoor said a journalist asked him “to identify an individual who is the alternative to Mr Modi”. According to Tharoor, the question was irrelevant in the Parliamentary system. “We are not electing an individual (as In a presidential system), but a party, or coalition of parties, that represents a set of principles and convictions that are invaluable to preserve India’s diversity, pluralism and inclusive growth,” he said.

“The alternative to Mr Modi is a group of experienced, capable and diverse Indian leaders who will be responsive to people’s problems and not driven by individual ego,” Tharoor added.

The Congress MP said which specific person they will choose to be prime minister “is a secondary consideration”. “Protecting our democracy and diversity comes first,” he said.

Earlier, in an interview to news agenc PTI, Tharoor stood by dynasty politics in parties in the country, saying it’s part of India’s culture and suggested it’s a common practice, not something unusual.

“It’s a relatively common thing that in India, much more than in the West, a father expects his son to follow his profession, and so it tends to go. So it’s not at all surprising that there is a certain level of ‘parivar vaad’ in all parties,” Tharoor was quoted as saying.

Ridiculing the anti-dynasty campaign of Modi during his Lok Sabha election rallies, Tharoor claimed that except for the top few leaders, all the ministers and MPs in the BJP are sons or daughters of other senior BJP officials.

“I honestly don’t see any particular consistency in Mr Modi attacking ‘parivar vaad’ in other parties but encouraging parivar in his own party. His party is full of MPs, ministers, and others who are all sons or daughters of other senior BJP officials,” the Congress Working Committee (CWC) member alleged.

The Thiruvananthapuram MP defended the fact that most of the leaders of the INDIA bloc are part of the dynasty.

Tharoor also said that he was not a contender for the post of prime minister and hoped that either Mallikarjun Kharge or Rahul Gandhi would become prime minister if the INDIA bloc wins the Lok Sabha elections.