Congress chief polls | Shashi Tharoor: A person of phrases and lots of unbiased strikes

By PTI

NEW DELHI: By submitting his nomination as Congress president on Friday, Shashi Tharoor has proven he’s no ‘quockerwodger’ – a phrase he launched into our lexicon – performing on the directions of an influential third social gathering.

In reality, the bestseller writer, wordsmith, former UN diplomat and social media ‘pioneer’ with 8.3 million followers has demonstrated he’s fairly the alternative of a ‘quockerwodger’, a politically loaded time period for a picket puppet, and is as an alternative independent-minded, making strikes on his personal phrases.

As hypothesis over who can be within the race for the Congress president mounted and most of his social gathering colleagues demurred, Tharoor was the primary off the block to declare he would contest.

The 66-year-old filed his nomination on the workplace of the Congress’ central election authority Madhusudan Mistry on Friday, the final day of the nomination course of for the highest submit within the social gathering lengthy dominated by the Gandhi household.

Tharoor, seen as a insurgent and one of many group of 23 leaders who wrote to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 searching for large-scale reforms, now takes on veteran Mallikarjun Kharge, extensively seen to be backed by senior leaders and tipped to win.

The longer the Congress waits to get its act collectively, the larger the danger of a gradual erosion of our conventional vote financial institution and their gravitation in the direction of our political opponents.

“Which is why I have long been an outspoken advocate for free and transparent elections within the party, including for the post of president,” the forthright former Union minister instructed PTI.

Those who’ve {followed} Tharoor’s profession path say two issues — he is filled with surprises and up for a struggle with out being deterred by the percentages stacked towards him.

READ HERE | Congress ought to stand for change, not shocked institution backing Kharge: Tharoor

Born in London in 1956, Tharoor graduated with an honours in historical past from Delhi’s prestigious St Stephen’s College the place he was additionally the president of the scholar’s union.

He did his masters from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Medford, US, and accomplished a PhD from there in 1978.

Defying the politician stereotype, Tharoor went on to have a distinguished profession within the UN.

During his stint on the UN, he shouldered a number of key obligations in peace-keeping after the Cold War and serving as senior adviser to the secretary-general, along with his function as under-secretary normal for Communications and Public Information.

Tharoor, who was chosen as India’s official candidate for the submit of secretary normal, completed second of seven candidates within the 2006 election, which was gained by former South Korean diplomat and politician Ban Ki-moon.

His abdomen for a struggle towards daunting odds was maybe first displayed in that electoral struggle.

Three years later, he retired as a world civil servant and made a lateral entry into politics in 2009 to be elected as MP from Thiruvananthapuram for the primary time on a Congress ticket.

Though his political journey started at 53, he took big strides as a politician after successful the Lok Sabha election.

His candidacy was opposed by a bit of leaders of the Kerala Congress who considered him as an outsider.

Tharoor, nevertheless, gained by a snug margin over his nearest opponent from the Communist Party of India.

ALSO READ | Mallikarjun Kharge​, a Gandhi household loyalist poised to be second Congress chief from Karnataka

He was appointed Union minister of state for External Affairs within the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) authorities.

Tharoor is a pioneer in utilizing social media as an instrument of political interplay.

He was India’s most-followed politician on Twitter until 2013 when he was overtaken by present Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The usually outspoken politician, making headlines for his politics and generally additionally for throwing little-used phrases which have his Twitter followers reaching for the dictionary, finds himself on the centre of controversy now and again.

In 2009, as an illustration, within the early days of his political profession, he made a remark about travelling ‘cattle class’ for which he needed to apologise.

He was additionally accused of getting a questionable curiosity in a cricket staff from the Kerala metropolis of Kochi whereas he was a minister.

He resigned from the MEA in April 2010.

His private life noticed a tragic flip in January 2014 when his spouse Sunanda Pushkar was discovered useless in a set of a luxurious resort right here.

The couple was staying within the resort as Tharoor’s official bungalow of Tharoor was being renovated on the time.

Tharoor was later charged underneath part 498A (husband or relative of husband of a lady subjecting her to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code by Delhi Police.

A Delhi courtroom discharged him within the case final 12 months.

The 12 months of his spouse’s dying was additionally when he gained a second Lok Sabha time period from Thiruvananthapuram, swimming towards the tide of a large Narendra Modi wave.

However, his victory margin got here down from a staggering 99,998 votes in 2009 to over 15,000.

In 2019, he gained the seat for a 3rd time, defeating his most important rival and BJP-NDA candidate Kummanam Rajashekharan by a margin of 99,989 votes.

In July 2020, Tharoor crossed a milestone by changing into the longest-serving parliamentarian representing the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency.

Tharoor broke the report of Congress’ A Charles, who represented the constituency for 4,047 days from 1984 to 1991.

An energetic parliamentarian and amongst the most effective orators within the House, Tharoor has additionally been chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs and is at the moment Chair of the parliamentary panel on data and know-how and communications.

However, it has been reported that the federal government has determined to take the chair-ship of the panel from the Congress.

Always recognized to talk his thoughts, the ‘G 23’ chief has reiterated again and again that his sole intention of being among the many signatories to the letter to Sonia Gandhi was reform of the social gathering.

However, he has been handled by many within the social gathering as a kind of a insurgent with many Gandhi loyalists attacking him sometimes.

Tharoor has been a prolific author and authored about 23 books, together with ‘The Great Indian Novel’, ‘An Era of Darkness’, ‘Why I Am A Hindu’ and ‘The Paradoxical Prime Minister’.

He has additionally gained a number of awards and bestowed with prestigious honours such because the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best Book of the Year within the Eurasian Region for ‘The Great Indian Novel’, Spain’s Commander of the Order of Charles III by King of Spain, the Sahitya Akademi Award for his e-book ‘An Era of Darkness’ in addition to France’s Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur.

Tharoor’s hope within the polls is finest summed up by the traces of Urdu poet Majrooh Sultanpuri which the MP had tweeted this week – “Main akela hi chala tha janib-e-manzil magar log saath aate gaye aur karvaan banta gaya (I began my journey alone, people joined in and the caravan kept on growing).”

NEW DELHI: By submitting his nomination as Congress president on Friday, Shashi Tharoor has proven he’s no ‘quockerwodger’ – a phrase he launched into our lexicon – performing on the directions of an influential third social gathering.

In reality, the bestseller writer, wordsmith, former UN diplomat and social media ‘pioneer’ with 8.3 million followers has demonstrated he’s fairly the alternative of a ‘quockerwodger’, a politically loaded time period for a picket puppet, and is as an alternative independent-minded, making strikes on his personal phrases.

As hypothesis over who can be within the race for the Congress president mounted and most of his social gathering colleagues demurred, Tharoor was the primary off the block to declare he would contest.

The 66-year-old filed his nomination on the workplace of the Congress’ central election authority Madhusudan Mistry on Friday, the final day of the nomination course of for the highest submit within the social gathering lengthy dominated by the Gandhi household.

Tharoor, seen as a insurgent and one of many group of 23 leaders who wrote to Sonia Gandhi in 2020 searching for large-scale reforms, now takes on veteran Mallikarjun Kharge, extensively seen to be backed by senior leaders and tipped to win.

The longer the Congress waits to get its act collectively, the larger the danger of a gradual erosion of our conventional vote financial institution and their gravitation in the direction of our political opponents.

“Which is why I have long been an outspoken advocate for free and transparent elections within the party, including for the post of president,” the forthright former Union minister instructed PTI.

Those who’ve {followed} Tharoor’s profession path say two issues — he is filled with surprises and up for a struggle with out being deterred by the percentages stacked towards him.

READ HERE | Congress ought to stand for change, not shocked institution backing Kharge: Tharoor

Born in London in 1956, Tharoor graduated with an honours in historical past from Delhi’s prestigious St Stephen’s College the place he was additionally the president of the scholar’s union.

He did his masters from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Medford, US, and accomplished a PhD from there in 1978.

Defying the politician stereotype, Tharoor went on to have a distinguished profession within the UN.

During his stint on the UN, he shouldered a number of key obligations in peace-keeping after the Cold War and serving as senior adviser to the secretary-general, along with his function as under-secretary normal for Communications and Public Information.

Tharoor, who was chosen as India’s official candidate for the submit of secretary normal, completed second of seven candidates within the 2006 election, which was gained by former South Korean diplomat and politician Ban Ki-moon.

His abdomen for a struggle towards daunting odds was maybe first displayed in that electoral struggle.

Three years later, he retired as a world civil servant and made a lateral entry into politics in 2009 to be elected as MP from Thiruvananthapuram for the primary time on a Congress ticket.

Though his political journey started at 53, he took big strides as a politician after successful the Lok Sabha election.

His candidacy was opposed by a bit of leaders of the Kerala Congress who considered him as an outsider.

Tharoor, nevertheless, gained by a snug margin over his nearest opponent from the Communist Party of India.

ALSO READ | Mallikarjun Kharge​, a Gandhi household loyalist poised to be second Congress chief from Karnataka

He was appointed Union minister of state for External Affairs within the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) authorities.

Tharoor is a pioneer in utilizing social media as an instrument of political interplay.

He was India’s most-followed politician on Twitter until 2013 when he was overtaken by present Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The usually outspoken politician, making headlines for his politics and generally additionally for throwing little-used phrases which have his Twitter followers reaching for the dictionary, finds himself on the centre of controversy now and again.

In 2009, as an illustration, within the early days of his political profession, he made a remark about travelling ‘cattle class’ for which he needed to apologise.

He was additionally accused of getting a questionable curiosity in a cricket staff from the Kerala metropolis of Kochi whereas he was a minister.

He resigned from the MEA in April 2010.

His private life noticed a tragic flip in January 2014 when his spouse Sunanda Pushkar was discovered useless in a set of a luxurious resort right here.

The couple was staying within the resort as Tharoor’s official bungalow of Tharoor was being renovated on the time.

Tharoor was later charged underneath part 498A (husband or relative of husband of a lady subjecting her to cruelty) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code by Delhi Police.

A Delhi courtroom discharged him within the case final 12 months.

The 12 months of his spouse’s dying was additionally when he gained a second Lok Sabha time period from Thiruvananthapuram, swimming towards the tide of a large Narendra Modi wave.

However, his victory margin got here down from a staggering 99,998 votes in 2009 to over 15,000.

In 2019, he gained the seat for a 3rd time, defeating his most important rival and BJP-NDA candidate Kummanam Rajashekharan by a margin of 99,989 votes.

In July 2020, Tharoor crossed a milestone by changing into the longest-serving parliamentarian representing the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency.

Tharoor broke the report of Congress’ A Charles, who represented the constituency for 4,047 days from 1984 to 1991.

An energetic parliamentarian and amongst the most effective orators within the House, Tharoor has additionally been chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs and is at the moment Chair of the parliamentary panel on data and know-how and communications.

However, it has been reported that the federal government has determined to take the chair-ship of the panel from the Congress.

Always recognized to talk his thoughts, the ‘G 23’ chief has reiterated again and again that his sole intention of being among the many signatories to the letter to Sonia Gandhi was reform of the social gathering.

However, he has been handled by many within the social gathering as a kind of a insurgent with many Gandhi loyalists attacking him sometimes.

Tharoor has been a prolific author and authored about 23 books, together with ‘The Great Indian Novel’, ‘An Era of Darkness’, ‘Why I Am A Hindu’ and ‘The Paradoxical Prime Minister’.

He has additionally gained a number of awards and bestowed with prestigious honours such because the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best Book of the Year within the Eurasian Region for ‘The Great Indian Novel’, Spain’s Commander of the Order of Charles III by King of Spain, the Sahitya Akademi Award for his e-book ‘An Era of Darkness’ in addition to France’s Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur.

Tharoor’s hope within the polls is finest summed up by the traces of Urdu poet Majrooh Sultanpuri which the MP had tweeted this week – “Main akela hi chala tha janib-e-manzil magar log saath aate gaye aur karvaan banta gaya (I began my journey alone, people joined in and the caravan kept on growing).”