Tharoor opens a new front in Congress in Kerala, leaves many leaders fretting and fuming

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Thiruvananthapuram: After his foredoomed run for Congress presidency, Shashi Tharoor has opened a new front in Kerala.  He is out to position himself as a central player in the state, making the entrenched leaders extremely uncomfortable.

The abrupt move by the three-time Lok Sabha member has especially upset the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly V D Satheesan, who fancies himself as the front runner for the chief minister’s post if the Congress-led UDF (United Democratic Front) gains power in 2026. Most others, including KPCC president K Sudhakaranand AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, are seemingly disturbed but have chosen to be a little circumspect for now.

After he burst into politics with a Congress ticket to contest the 2009 Lok Sabha polls from Thiruvananthapuram, as a high command pick, Tharoor has over the years preferred largely to keep away from the perennially faction-riven party affairs in the state. A man of many an accomplishment, the former UN diplomat used to spend much of his time in the national capital engaging himself in parliamentary work and intellectual pursuits as a writer and debater in town halls of big media houses.  

But that is passé. Sending clear signals that he is eyeing a key role on home turf, Tharoor has jumped with great relish into the state politics. He hit the ground first with a trip to Kozhikode in north Kerala to address a party youth wing gathering. The event was arranged by Kozhikode MP M K Raghavan.The party establishment, however, promptly intervened and withdrew the official stamp from the event. But Tharoor declined to be cowed down. He addressed the event, turning it into a gathering stretching beyond strict political lines. 

His next stop was the home of the supreme leader of the Indian Union Muslim League, (IUML) Sadikali Shihab Thangal,  at nearby Malappuram. Tharoor received a warm welcome from the IUML leader. Significantly, IUML is an all-weather ally of Congress and is a force to reckon with in the Malabar region. His major engagement in the coming days includes one at the headquarters of the Nair Service Society (NSS) on its founder’s birth anniversary. 

NSS is a Nair community outfit with an extensive network of units across the state. Tharoor belongs to the community, though much of his life he has spent outside Kerala, priding himself as a world citizen. In between, he has got a clutch of minor engagements in different settings.

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His detractors think that Tharoor is trying to build bridges with various sections of the party and the society at large, as a prelude to a big push. They were quick to approach the central leadership with the complaint that Tharoor is out to wreck the unity in the state unit, at a critical juncture. They got AICC general secretary in charge Tariq Anwar to intervene. Tharoor has been asked to inform the District Congress Committees (DCCs) concerned before attending programs in any part of the state.  But he appears to be in no mood to take things lying down. Albeit, he has made it clear that he stood for strengthening the party for the battles ahead.

To the great discomfiture of his rivals, Tharoor’s move has generated positive vibes from large sections of the party. After back-to-back defeats in the assembly polls, a feeling is strong in the ranks that in the prevailing national and regional mood the party needs to reimagine itself. It is no one’s case that Tharoor on his own will pull off a miracle. But many think that the democratic, inclusive, liberal message he put across while he contested the AICC presidency is important. 

Unlike, the ideologically rigid BJP or the CPI (M), Congress cannot regain its lost space by adhering to hard-boiled ideals or stringent structural reengineering. Also, going by the national mood,  the party can no longer deliver by invoking the charisma and infallibility of the Nehru-Gandhi family. This is especially true in a politically hyper-conscious state like Kerala.

Tharoor’s central positioning is happening at a time when Kerala is becoming increasingly crucial for Congress to notch up a double-digit tally in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In 2019, the UDF grabbed 19 of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state. It comes with half the LS strength of the party. It will be disastrous for the grand old party to fail to repeat the same performance next time unless a national political upheaval puts it on a high trajectory. 

Considering this reality, it will be costly for the party to alienate people like Tharoor who could sway people outside mundane politics, disenchanted with both the LDF and the BJP. The challenge is how to leverage the skills of people who can help reconfigure the party with upfront ideas and personal appeal, without causing disaffection among the day-to-day functionaries. This could be a disruptive process. But any critical departure in politics is a little disruptive.