Kochi: Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has listed out three reasons why he feels the BJP could lose the Lok Sabha elections.
Speaking exclusively to ThePrint, he claimed that the “BJP knows it is losing” and referred to the party’s safety-first approach despite aggressively pushing its ‘Ab ki baar 400 paar’ slogan. Tharoor said that “for some BJP leaders”, it would instead be “Ab ki baar, Tihar”, referring to the revelations on the electoral bonds — likening it to extortion and bribery.
“In 2019, the BJP maxed out in states such as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, and won all but one seat in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, whereas in Karnataka and Chhattisgarh it won all but two seats,” said the Congress MP. He pointed to three different developments within a fortnight to suggest that the BJP is panicky about the results.
The first pertained to what Tharoor described as “the desperate search for allies”, ranging from the Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh to the failed bid to convince the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab and finally, the failed attempt to form an alliance in Odisha with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), almost bending over backwards.
The second point Tharoor referred to was the move to freeze the bank accounts of the Congress, and thirdly, the dramatic arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Tharoor went on to add that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (IT) authorities are being misused by the government, even flouting the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).
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On voter fatigue and opponents
Tharoor sounded very confident about his prospects despite the three-term anti-incumbency factor and his immediate challenger, the BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar — the Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology — giving him a tough fight.
“Rajeev Chandrasekhar has been a Rajya Sabha MP for 18 years and has little or nothing to show for it,” Tharoor said as he went on the offensive, before going on to add, “Other than his business thriving, it is difficult to point to any accomplishments as an MP in the state he served for so long.” The Congress leader admitted that Chandrasekhar’s position as a minister and claims of returning to power might sway a section of the voters, but asserted that such a notion would dissipate in the coming days.
Tharoor was kinder towards his other opponent, the Communist Party of India’s (CPI’s) Pannyan Raveendran, whom he described as “a good man…a decent human being” who “no one has a bad word to say about”, but went on to qualify that the latter wasn’t likely to be effective as an MP in Delhi. Tharoor even claimed that Raveendran choosing not to contest in 2009 as sitting MP was linked to non-performance.
On voter fatigue after 15 years, Tharoor said he offered a safe pair of hands, had a lot to offer and would gladly step away the moment he felt he wasn’t of any use to his voters. He took a dig at his opponents for shirking the opportunity to debate with him, declaring that he knew what he was talking about while his opponents didn’t.
On the prospect of Rajeev Chandrasekhar attracting a section of his voters ranging from the Nairs, the middle class, women, youth to techies, Tharoor acknowledged the threat. He was equally realistic about some loss of votes among the rural folk, primarily in the coastal regions where the fisherfolk have a grievance against him.
Coastal woes
The fisherfolk have been nursing a feeling of resentment towards Tharoor since he did not back their protests against the construction of the Vizhinjam Seaport, especially on the issue of holding up construction activity.
Tharoor suggested that the fisherfolk have instead been let down by the Left government not following up on the rehabilitation package devised by the Oommen Chandy-led Congress government in Kerala in 2015.
Tharoor burnished his argument by saying that he had batted for the coastal community all the time and recalled being at the Poonthura Parish Hall from morning to evening coordinating with the Centre when Cyclone Ockhi struck in 2017. He added that he personally took up the issue of increase in compensation for the victims of Ockhi.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP also spoke about raising the issue of sea erosion “over 20 times” in Parliament. He added that the Centre passed the buck saying that shoreline protection is a state government issue. Nevertheless, Tharoor said, he spent Rs 1.5 crore from his MPLADS funds for the construction of seawalls in Pozhiyoor and Kochuthoppu.
Tharoor argued that as MP, he had only Rs 50 lakh to spend per constituency falling under his Lok Sabha seat whereas the local MLAs — six of the seven representing the Left — got Rs 6 crore each year. He threw up his hands in exasperation saying that he had left no stone unturned to help the coastal folk.
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Performance as MP
Listing out his achievements as MP, Tharoor alluded to his multiple interventions in delivering the NH-66 Kazhakkoottam-Karode bypass crisscrossing Thiruvananthapuram as well as the “103 bottlenecks” he helped clear. He also took credit for increasing the train stoppages and the modernisaton of the Thiruvananthapuram airport, even going against his party line in the process.
Tharoor claimed that his office cleared over 250 petitions every week and recalled his swift interventions during the Covid days, the way he exhausted his MPLADs funds purchasing PPE kits, and so on.
He also drew attention to his performance in Parliament and his interventions on behalf of the state. On Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s charge that Congress MPs from Kerala haven’t really been of use to the state, Tharoor said “It showed a certain contempt for the knowledge of the voter.”
Solutions for Kerala
On the issue of young people migrating abroad, Tharoor highlighted Kerala’s reputation for being ‘God’s Own Country’ for tourists and the “devil’s own backyard for businesses”. He added that it was absurd that it took 236 days to open a business in Kerala.
Tharoor did not think rampant trade unionism was behind the business-unfriendliness, before going on to add that he was actually in favour of trade unions. But he advocated an “investor protection Act” for Kerala after the tragic cases of two entrepreneurs dying by suicide in Kerala in 2018 and 2019.
He said bigger business volumes would naturally prevent more people migrating and recalled that he had brought companies like Oracle, Tech Mahindra and Taurus to set up shop in Technopark.
On the unfinished agenda on his report card, Tharoor said the idea of a High Court bench in Thiruvananthapuram wasn’t in his control but he argued passionately in favour of it, saying that officials constantly shuttling between the state capital and Kochi, where the High Court is currently located, was only causing wasteful expenditure.
He said there were only two other states which did not have a High Court bench in the state capital — Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. But then, he added that Cuttack was only a 30-minute drive from Bhubaneshwar in Odisha and pointed to Madhya Pradesh having four High Court benches across the state.
Acceptability within Congress
Asked about his utility to the Congress, Tharoor said he was honoured to be a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC). On becoming more acceptable to the party rank-and-file, and fellow Congress leaders after throwing his hat in for the Congress presidency, Tharoor stated that he always felt that he had a strong support base within the party.
On being the longest serving MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Tharoor said his fourth contest this year could well be his last under normal circumstances, but went on to add, “never say never”.
Tharoor said he could not rule out a switch to state politics or a national role in the future, although he wanted to “see out his final years in Thiruvananthapuram”.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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