Tharoor's intervention on Friday followed Chidambaram's questioning of the tangible gains India has secured from BRICS and other major multilateral groupings. The exchange quickly drew the Bharatiya Janata Party into the dispute, with spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari using the disagreement to attack the Congress leadership.
Chidambaram, a former Union finance and home minister and now a Rajya Sabha member, had said he was unable to identify clear benefits from the last two or three BRICS summits. He also questioned what India had gained from participation in BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the G20 and the Quad.
"I don't know how many Presidents and how many Prime Ministers are coming. I don't think the last two or three BRICS summits have resulted in tangible benefits or tangible results," Chidambaram said. He added that earlier BRICS meetings had produced some concrete gains but that he had not seen comparable outcomes from the last few gatherings.
Tharoor, the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram and a former minister of state for external affairs, took a markedly different view. He said India was providing an important platform for the Global South and that the expanded BRICS brought together countries representing a wide range of political and economic interests.
"The Global South is over 100 countries, but here we have 11 key players from the Global South who collectively represent much of the diversity of views," Tharoor said. He described the summit as an event that the wider international community had to take seriously.
Tharoor also argued that the presence of multiple heads of state and government in New Delhi carried diplomatic value independent of immediately measurable policy outcomes. Hosting leaders from BRICS members and partner countries, he said, demonstrated India's ability to bring influential governments together and enhanced its international standing.
The distinction was important because Tharoor did not claim that every BRICS meeting necessarily produced immediate material gains. His argument centred instead on the strategic value of maintaining a forum through which India can engage major emerging economies and advance issues affecting the Global South.
Bhandari seized on the exchange, posting on X that "Congress exposes Congress" and accusing Tharoor of exposing what he called the party's "naraz fufa" faction. He also alleged that opposition to the summit was being driven by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The Congress had not publicly endorsed that characterisation.
Bhandari separately cited India's exports to BRICS countries, putting them at about $85 billion, and said the expanded grouping accounted for 40 per cent of global output and about half the world's population. Tharoor made a similar scale argument, saying BRICS members collectively represented a majority of the population and about 41 per cent of world GDP, figures he used to underline the forum's weight.
The political sparring comes as New Delhi hosts the 18th BRICS leaders' summit on September 12 and 13. The grouping now includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, while several other countries participate as partners.
The summit is taking place amid significant divisions within the expanded bloc, particularly over the conflict involving Iran and tensions between Tehran and Abu Dhabi. Those differences have complicated efforts to maintain consensus, even as members seek closer cooperation on trade, development finance and cross-border payment systems.
BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors, meeting ahead of the leaders, called for reforms to international development institutions and backed faster, cheaper and more secure cross-border payments. The grouping has also continued discussions on increasing the use of local currencies without formally adopting a common-currency project.