Rise and Fall of Shashi Tharoor

Rise and Fall of Shashi Tharoor

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August 11, 2022

Ceaser’s wife also should be above suspicion, otherwise she may bring trouble to her husband. Mr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs, who had to resign his prestigious post because of accusations of his involvement in showing favour to his proposed or would-be wife, Sunanda Pushkar, a Dubai-based professional and socialite, who was given 19% out of 25% free shares of Rendezvous Sports World franchise, which are worth Rs. 70 crore. It was alleged that Shashi Tharoor was helpful to her in getting the shares. Up to now it is not clear whether he used his influence or not. But this whole murky affair, having the dimensions of a scandal, rocked the Parliament, united the Opposition and put the ruling party to great embarrassment. Mr. Tharoor was forced to resign to save the position of the ruling party.

Rise and fall of Tharoor has quite a number of lessons. He was holding several prestigious posts in the United Nations, the highest being that of its Under Secretary General. After a 35-year long stint in international arena and with enviable contacts with foreign diplomats and dignitaries this suave professional and writer returned to his home state Kerala. He was picked up by the ruling party as a candidate for Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, from where he was elected with a comfortable margin of one lakh votes. He was regarded as a good choice to be in the Foreign Ministry because of his wide contacts across the world, and he showed his mettle through his diplomatic initiatives in African and Latin American countries. He would have been an asset for the country if he had moved carefully but his career was cut short because of the scandal and his last one year’s public record.

He should have been more careful in his comments and tweets. The principle of ‘silence is golden’ was not followed by him in many cases and unnecessary tweets paved the way for his fall. He was butt of many controversies during his 11-month stay in the Union Cabinet. Last year in September, at a time when the Government was trying to stave off bad effects of recession, and Congress Party was enforcing an austerity drive, he was found enjoying the luxury of staying in a 5-star hotel in the Capital, on the pretext that his official house was being repaired. On the instruction of his party high-ups he had to move out. He was less circumspect when he tweeted that he was travelling (by air) in cattle (economy) class in solidarity with the holy cows (other ministers). Then he made party elders raise their eyebrows when in a seminar he made derogatory comments against Nehru’s policies. In last February, while accompanying Prime Minister in his Saudi Arabian visit, he made an uncalled for remark that Saudi Arabia could be a valuable interlocutor in India’s relations with Pakistan, whereas India’s constant stand has been that all Indo-Pak issues should be solved bilaterally without any third party involvement. The above events had amply showed that his decades-long stint had made him oblivious to the ground realities of the Indian political culture. Finally, his alleged involvement and objectionable role, to quote his own words‘as a mentor’ of successful Kochi bidders for Indian Premier League Kochi consortium, proved to be the last straw. This brought his final downfall.