Shashi Tharoor returned to Trivandrum, last week to a rousing welcome. People cutting across party lines were there to greet him. If he were to resign from the Congress today, and contest as an independent, then the capital city may be lost forever to both the UDF and LDF.
Shashi Tharoor maybe the answer to Kerala’s professional politicians and their tight grip on the state. He has the potential in terms of popularity to lead Kerala out of the peat bog, to unfetter its feet and lead the people from indifference to participation.
He has the potential as he has the people’s backing. The apathy that the people felt at the choices before them seem to vanish when it comes to Tharoor. There is definitely a resurgence of hope in the embittered populace after Tharoor entered politics. Which might explain the bitter attacks on him for anything and everything.
Now if only Tharoor realizes his potential and seizes the moment, he can make history. He is the man who can turn the tide for Keralites.
If however he is risk averse, then he can do a lot as a sitting MP too.
Kerala voters seem to say, “If you have the inclination, you have our vote, all of it.” (Sorry HMT for lifting your tagline).
13 comments:
Good one. But I see an underestimation of the power of party politics. We the "secure" people always have a tendency to do that...
Machiavelli: Which is why I laid an emphasis on the word "may" in this post. :) I know party politics is not easy to brush aside!
Hi Anju,
I don't hve much idea about Kerala's ground reality, but as an outsider as far as I followed Tharoor , he doesn't seem to be a mass man.
Even when he ws minister he was busy commenting about different national and international issues in twitter and focussed in increasing his twitter follower count.
I hve never heard him raising any local issue. Again I feel the support he is getting now is more because he tried to get IPL franchise for Kochi. This will wane is sometime, if he doesnt focus on real problems.
Standing as independent is destabilizing to our polity. Look at Laloo-Paswan-JMM-NCP type cheap special interest group lobbies. He therefore wisely chose a lesser evil Congress.In BJP,RSS is suspicious of "Jaswant Singhs" of non-RSS backgrnd and will not allow him to climb the career ladder. Though he joined Congress he maintain a healthy constructive criticism to show that he will not have none of the sycophancy of congresswallahs,by taking intermittent subtle potshots at holycows like Nehru,Gandhi etc.
The bare minimum I expect of him is to raise the bar of quality for politicians to revive positivity towards politics in Kerala people and thereby persuading us to engage actively in politics.
Perhaps he will do all that you suggest. And hope is good. But I for one am inclined to think that Tharoor makes a good diplomat but a poor executive. I hope I am proved wrong.
Fact. Especially with the recent fracas over the IPL, he seems to be the answer to the nagging indifference and contempt that the thinking populace have w r to politicians
India don't deserve people like him, sadly! It is okie for politicians to loot, kill and spy against the country; but never ever make the mistake of tweeting or even supporting an IPL bid! Grrr..!!
And in this country, there are some morons with the same conventional mind set who still thinks we live in Nehru era!!
With such people in majority, it is hard for this country to progress!!
Well said.
Tharoor has been criticized as being the charming-man of just the netizens ever since he broke into the political scene. By God, he won with a landslide margin in a constituency which was like always going either way by less that 10k votes.
Even after the IPL fiasco his popularity doesn't appear dented at all. He will come back strongly, no two opinions about it. Poor Modi, he dug the pit for Tharoor and now he is into it head-first and probably will be buried forever. :)
in ST, I see not only an intelligent and charming persona, but also the truth that the new India must be led by us, the educated and intelligent youth. and it augurs well for the young India. it is time that we played our part and contributed towards the nation to take it forward. it makes me confident that we can build an India beyond party, religion, caste and such divisive forces. and that these will not remain mere dreams in our hearts.
Just stopped to say hello.I think you have a cool blog here.
true ... he can do a lot of good .. have seen some of his speeches on youtube ... he's real good .. and if he lives his words, he can change a lot of things ... but if only ...
but he has been in way too many controversies .. and some of them involve money .. and that is not a good sign ... all politicians are , but ... what a hypocrisy, huh ?
Nice piece. I like Tharoor - I think he is honest.
I also like the new look of your blog.
Post a Comment