Thirteen years after he first grew to become the MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor The unlikely politician stays Shashi Tharoor the unlikely Congressman. He has a character distinctly his personal in a celebration that prefers lining up behind the excessive command. At the identical time, when push involves shové, the 66-year-old has fallen in line himself, repeatedly.
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And there have been a number of of these pushes and shoves. In the latest one, Tharoor was compelled to quietly pull out of a seminar being held by the CPM in Kerala after the state Congress objected. Tharoor has additionally earned the native Congress’s ire for not aligning with the occasion in opposing the Pinarayi Vijayan authorities’s bold SilverLine undertaking.
This non-partisan strategy suits in nicely with Tharoor’s fastidiously constructed picture of an intellectual-politician extra in concepts than energy. However, it additionally means the ever-squabbling Congress within the state and the ever-suspicious Congress on the heart have no idea the place to suit him in.
“Guest artist” within the Congress, “vishwa pauran (global citizen)”, “rebel” and “outlier” are simply a few of the descriptions used for the MP by his personal colleagues. They have additionally publicly ridiculed and derided him for his views.
And but, Tharoor had what can solely be known as a grand entry into the occasion and politics in 2009. A former UN diplomat who famously misplaced the publish of Secretary General by a whisker, in addition to a prolific writer, Tharoor had been embraced by the Congress regardless of his generally vital views on Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. When he received the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the first-term MP had been appointed a minister.
According to these near Tharoor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recommendation for his younger colleague on the time was that he must be cautious of jealous colleages. To Tharoor’s buddies, that also stays true 13 years later.
The friction has been rising for the reason that Congress’s loss within the Kerala Assembly elections final yr, with the CPM bucking the pattern to retain energy. As the occasion dynamics modified with the appointment of Ok Sudhakaran as PCC chief and VD Satheesan as Leader of the Opposition, Tharoor who was in neither camp discovered himself with few buddies. This is regardless of Tharoor having put in a phrase with the excessive command for Sudhakaran’s appointment. 
However, Congress leaders accuse the MP of burning his bridges himself, citing how, quickly after Narendra Modi’s 2014 triumph, Tharoor had recommended that we is perhaps Modi 2.0 because the PM had been reconciliatory and inclusive in his statements; and the way Tharoor had praised Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission and brought up the supply to be one among its model ambassadors, calling it a nationwide trigger.
The requires disciplinary motion in opposition to Tharoor on the time had finally resulted in his elimination because the occasion’s nationwide spokesperson.
In 2019, after the Congress registered one among its worst ballot performances, Tharoor had recommended that slightly than opposing Modi for the sake of opposing him, the PM must be praised “whenever he says or does the right thing, which would add credibility to our criticisms whenever he errs”.
Then got here Tharoor’s assist for the Centre’s choice to lease out the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport for 50 years to the Adani Group.
Through these run-ins with the state Congress, Tharoor was believed to have the excessive command’s backing. That modified in August 2020 when he, as one of many G23, put his signal on a letter to Sonia Gandhi looking for sweeping modifications within the occasion.
Clearly having fun with the change vis-a-vis Tharoor, fellow Lok Sabha MP from Kerala Ok Muraleedharan stated on the time that “leaders at the national level” would determine his destiny. “You made him a world citizen; we’re simply strange residents.”
In marked distinction was the state Congress’s silence on PJ Kurien, who was additionally a signatory to the letter.
Tharoor’s initially ambiguous stand on SilverLine, together with refusal to signal on the letter by 17 UDF MPs opposing the undertaking, is the brand new flashpoint. “If you’re a occasion MP you must comply with the occasion line. Otherwise, you may depart the occasion, now we have instructed him in clear phrases,” Sudhakaran stated.
Tharoor has sought to make clear saying he hasn’t expressed assist for the rail undertaking however “declined to criticize it before I studied the details”.
Despite the warmth on him, Tharoor nonetheless enjoys the arrogance of the Congress central management, significantly Sonia. Sources stated it was the Congress president who requested him to maintain out of the CPM convention, citing to him Sudhakaran’s public opposition to it.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
