THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Congress’ recent event on the historical Vaikom Satyagraha in Kerala has created controversy over veteran party leader K Muraleedharan being denied an opportunity to speak at the conference, an incident which MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday termed as “insulting a senior figure”.

Tharoor said if the party has to progress properly, then its senior leaders should not be treated in this fashion.

“He (Muraleedharan) is a senior leader. He is a former KPCC chief. He has played a significant role in the party. Insulting such a senior figure is not right,” the Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram said. His remarks come in the wake of Muraleedharan, son of late Congress leader and former CM K Karunakaran, indicating his disappointment over not being given an opportunity to speak at the event held on Thursday. The development assumes significance as Muraleedharan had thrown his weight behind Tharoor when the Thiruvananthapuram MP’s Malabar tour last year had unnerved a section of senior party leaders in the state. The latest controversy could lead to a resurgence of the behind-the-scenes rumblings in the party that occurred during Tharoor’s Malabar tour. Muraleedharan told reporters on Friday that he was “deliberately sidelined” as two other former KPCC chiefs — Ramesh Chennithala and M M Hassan — were given the opportunity to speak, but he was not. “There were three former KPCC chiefs on stage. Two — Hassan and Chennithala — spoke and that too extensively. The third — myself — was not given an opportunity. It is obvious they ignored me. I was deliberately sidelined,” he said.