Tharoor’s praise of Modi-Trump summit, LDF’s initiatives leaves Congress fuming

Thiruvananthapuram: Dr Shashi Tharoor, the fourth time Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, has done it again.
The 69-year-old diplomat-turned-politician annoyed both the party’s central and state leadership by airing views that went against the official narrative.

Tharoor said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States to meet President Donald Trump augured well for Indo-American ties. He appeared to have glossed over the fact that praising Modi is indeed a grave heresy in the Congress’s rule book. Significantly, Tharoor is Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs.

Then, in a newspaper article, he heaped praises on the fast-paced growth of the startup ecosystem in Kerala in recent years, apparently driven by the upfront initiatives of the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government.
This led the Congress leaders in the state to unleash their ire on Tharoor.

The LDF, especially CPI(M), on the other hand, was quick to lap up the Congress MP’s comment as a testimonial to its development agenda. The LDF leaders leveraged it to score points against the rival in routine political conversations that dominate the local media.
Tharoor is a man of many parts. Besides serving as a top-ranking official in the UN, he is also a reputed writer and widely- -appreciated conversationist who makes frequent appearances in literary, cultural and political town halls in the country and abroad.

Tharoor also proved to be a smart politician in his post-UN career. He never lost an election after he was chosen by the Congress to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Kerala capital.

Many in the Congress at the time frowned upon Tharoor’s candidacy and saw him as a rank outsider who would prove a misfit in the humdrum electoral politics.

Having spent much of his life outside Kerala, and mostly abroad, Tharoor was not very conversant in his mother tongue Malayalam when he made his electoral plunge in 2009. Proving his detractors wrong, Tharoor quickly adapted himself to the role of a run-of-the-mill politician on the campaign trail. Since then, he has assiduously built up his public appeal among his constituents and never lost elections. He became a minister in the UPA government in 2009, which he had to give up after a year but was brought back again.
Despite his resourcefulness, Tharoor has often run into trouble, due to his penchant for airing his views publicly, which often went against the party’s mundane narrative.

It is now history how disdainfully his candidature for the Congress presidentship was dismissed by the party’s first family and the loyal clique.

Despite being outspoken, Tharoor has survived, largely unscathed, in the Congress ecosystem marked by cut-throat competition, which is especially true of Kerala. But this time round he appeared completely isolated. Some in the party even demanded that he be dropped from the Congress Working Committee.

In the current round of row, Tharoor has defended himself holding that he has only spoken the truth. On positive views expressed at the Modi-Trump summit, Tharoor said he believed that strengthening strategic relationship with the United States serves the interests of India, in the prevailing global scenario. While holding on to this stance, he also pointed at the way the illegal migrants from India were being deported by the US.

On praising the growth of the startup ecosystem in the state under the LDF regime, Tharoor said he had critiqued the double standard in the Left’s policies when it is in and out of power.

Despite his defence, the row sparked by Tharoor has refused to die down. Top Congress leaders in the state want Tharoor to be censured by the central leadership.

Will Tharoor take down the admonition by the party’s central leadership? Or is he setting his eyes beyond the Congress ecosystem by airing views that annoy the party leadership? Tharoor’s comments have also set off these questions in the state’s hyper-sensitive political milieu.