With the Kerala Assembly polls around the corner, Shashi Tharoor has ruled himself out of the chief minister’s race, making it clear he is not even a candidate this time.
“No and not (a CM probable) for all sorts of good reasons, including the fact that I am not a candidate and I think that ideally the CM should be picked from one of the elected MLAs,” Tharoor said.
Instead, Tharoor is set to campaign across the state without being tied to a constituency. “It is a mixed bag of a role but because I don't have to worry about one particular constituency, I should be up and down the length and breadth of the state.”
The Congress has chosen to go into the election without projecting a chief ministerial face, unlike the Left Democratic Front led by Pinarayi Vijayan. Tharoor admitted he sees both sides of the argument.
“Personally I tend to agree with what you've said in the sense that we could have gone that route but as was pointed out to me by the party leadership, the Congress has never done that. They have chosen to take the approach that the election is for a party and once the party has won, it will choose its leader, which means in effect, the high command, having consulted the elected MLAs, will choose a leader,” he said.
“You and I may have a different view. In my own case, I have been watching the evolution of elections in our country and even though we are a parliamentary system on the face of it, in practice, all parties are run presidentially and all elections are conducted in that way. So, for there to be a situation where you don't have a visible leader in a state inevitably tends to hurt you,” he said.
“But having said all of that, the Congress has a wide footprint in the state, it has deep resonance right across Kerala, it has presence in every mohalla, every village, every ward and that gives the Congress the ability to deliver results not around an individual face or a name but around an agenda, around a mission and around the party logo,” he added.
On the campaign trail, Tharoor pointed to a message from Rahul Gandhi urging unity within the UDF. “He (Gandhi) said that 'Kerala dances are very attractive and I think all Kerala leaders need to dance together', which I think was a good message to give and I think everyone is dancing together.”
He set a target of 85 to 100 seats for the Congress-led UDF in the 140-member Assembly. Using a cricket reference, he said the UDF is bowling “googlies” and that the Left is “on a sticky wicket”.
Tharoor also questioned the early poll date. “It is quite shocking that it is happening on April 9, especially since the announcement itself was much later on March 15. So basically, the Election Commission has given us about three weeks of campaigning. Most parties have not even announced their full slate of candidates. The nominations have to come in by Monday and suddenly, you are going to have these nominated candidates having to face the electorate on April 9.”
He added, “It seems that, on the face of it, this was almost designed to favour the incumbent governments of the CPM in Kerala, the BJP in Assam, the local party in Puducherry, which are the three states that are voting on April 9.”
Despite the tight timeline, Tharoor expressed confidence about the outcome, pointing to “10 years of anti-incumbency against the LDF government, its spectacular failures, financial crises, corruption scandals, and all sorts of issues”.
On his own position within the party, he said, “My issues are essentially irrelevant to the state. I am not a candidate in the state election. It was more a question of being part of the team effort and I am very much part of the team effort. In fact, I am co-chair of the campaign committee.”
He plans to be on the ground through the campaign. “I am abandoning the last couple of weeks of the Parliament session and I am travelling to Kerala this weekend, right up to voting day, and I expect to hit all 14 districts.”
