The Congress in Kerala on Saturday inducted Shashi Tharoor in the manifesto committee in line with the party leadership’s decision to assign meatier roles to the four-term Thiruvananthapuram MP.

On Saturday, V.D. Satheesan, leader of the Opposition in Kerala, met Tharoor at his residence and informed him about his new responsibility.

“The meeting has solidified the Congress’s strategy for the upcoming Assembly elections. Tharoor will be taken into confidence in all the election campaign-related programmes, including a prominent role in envisaging the election manifesto,” a source close to Satheesan told The Telegraph.

Sources said the state leadership is planning to hold a series of public programmes to cash in on Tharoor’s popularity among the masses. Tharoor said he only wished for the victory of his party and the UDF and would be actively involved in the poll campaign. He said he would also contribute to preparing the election manifesto after the first phase of the budget session of Parliament ends on February 13.

He also reiterated that he was with the Congress and was not going anywhere.

Since Tharoor’s arrival in Thiruvananthapuram in 2009 to contest the Lok Sabha elections for the first time, he had never got the desired support from the state leadership. However, that didn’t stop the 69-year-old from winning all four parliamentary elections.

Tharoor’s ties with the Congress had strained over the treatment meted out to him at a recent Kochi event and attempts by some leaders to sideline him in Kerala.

The thaw in frosty ties came after he met with Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi on Thursday for redress of his grievances.

Tharoor had stayed back in Thiruvananthapuram to lend support to the Indian cricket team that will play against New Zealand in the fifth and final T20I here on Saturday.

“I have to take the 5am flight to New Delhi for the Union budget on Sunday. So that means, I’ll have to wake up by 3am to catch the flight,” Tharoor said.

Tharoor said he hoped the Centre would fulfil its promises to Kerala, including the establishment of an AIIMS, in the budget, and stressed the need to tackle coastal erosion on a “war footing”.

He said while the loss of even an inch of land to a foreign country such as China triggered discussions on “war” and “threats to national security”, the large-scale
erosion of coastal areas caused by the sea did not receive similar attention.

He said he had been raising the issue of coastal erosion in Parliament and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi for several years. “The Centre says it is the responsibility of the state, while the state government says it does not have the funds,” Tharoor said.