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In a stroke of political irony, Shashi Tharoor has become dearer to his party's leadership in Kerala, after getting stripped of his junior minister mantle. Congress support for him from home turf had been tepid, but after his resignation, this has suddenly become a shade warmer.
Ramesh Chennithala, PCC chief, Kerala, has on Monday, cautiously come out with a statement that the party unit was unhappy about Tharoor's resignation, but that this was only because "Ceaser's wife has to be beyond reproach." He felt that the MP from Thiruvananthapuram could have done with "a bit more political experience."
Asked why most leaders in State unit of Congress had not come out with supportive statements in the past week, Chennithala said that could be due to genuine ignorance about IPL cricket. There had been open discussions in the state's political sphere that leaders in the state Congress unit had been envious of the dramatic lateral entry and ministerial chair of Tharoor.
Only a few Congress MPs like K Sudhakaran and Peethambara Kurup and younger MLAs like PC Vishnunath had voiced support for Tharoor, in the days, where his integrity was being debated. At some places, cadres were seen taking out rallies in support of Tharoor. Both Chennithala and former chief minister Oommen Chandy had refused to be Tharoor's cheer, in earlier instances when he had courted controversies. The first time he was in soup was when he spent his early days as minister in a five-star hotel in New Delhi. The next was his social networking site Twitter comment on "cattle class". His comment on Saudi Arabia, during Prime Minister's visit to that country, also landed him foot in mouth. In each of these predicaments, the senior Congress leaders in Kerala had further embarrassed Tharoor with their vocal silence. But then, he has a family-pillar of support in his native Palakkad. Tharoor's octogenerian grandmother Jayashankini Amma's only regret is that "Shashi is too nice a boy for politics and that he should have stayed on in UN". She said that "it was unthinkable that he would be involved in any kind of corruption,".
Tharoor's plea that this intention had been only to win a team for Kerala too has not been taken in sporting spirit. CPI(M) leadership in Kerala, predictably, had been quick to blast Tharoor's preference for a gamble like IPL cricket, when there were graver issues like clearance for Kochi metro in Centre-State joint ventrue mode is hanging fire with Centre. He had been trying to execute a twin-city deal between Thiruvananthapuram and Spanish city Barcelona.
One allegation is that because of ministerial commitments, Tharoor was never available locally whenever Barcelonan delegations dropped in for discussions.
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