Even as the Congress’s Kerala unit is engaged in a war against party spokesman Shashi Tharoor over his alleged habit of praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior BJP leader O Rajagopal on Thursday filed an affidavit in the High Court seeking the election of Tharoor as an MP from Thiruvananthapuram to be set aside.
Rajagopal sought setting aside of Tharoor’s election by alleging that he had filed an incomplete nomination as the affidavit submitted along with it had not contained the details of the assets Tharoor and his son had got after the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. He said this was a violation of election rules.
The BJP leader also said that there was no information in the declaration Tharoor had filed along with his nomination on the money he had given to discharge the liabilities of Sunanda Pushkar. According to Rajagopal, an affidavit submitted along with nomination was invalid if it lacked complete information and the returning officer should not have accepted such a nomination.
Shashi Tharoor, who was elected from Thiruvananthapuram in 2009 by a margin of 99,998 votes, defeated BJP’s candidate Rajagopal in a triangular contest in the 16th lok Sabha election in the same seat by a meager margin of 15,470 votes. Bennet Abraham, the lDF candidate of the CPI, was pushed to the third position in the election.
Rajagopal submitted the affidavit in the HC in an election case based on the petition filed by BJP’s Thiruvananthapuram district president S Suresh, seeking invalidation of his election and declaration of Rajagopal as winner since Tharoor had allegedly violated election rules.
Suresh alleged that the property statement Tharoor had filed with his nomination papers had suppressed information regarding the wealth — including jewellry and apartments — devolved on to him with the death of his wife as the sole heirs to the wealth of the deceased in India and abroad were her son and Tharoor.
The petition argued that Tharoor had hidden his entitlement to this wealth deliberately from the Election Commission and therefore his nomination should be declared invalid. The High Court, which had on July 31 served notice on Tharoor in the case, is expected to take up the petition as well as Rajagopal’s affidavit soon.
Meanwhile, attacks against Tharoor from senior Congress leaders in Kerala over his alleged tendency of making pro-BJP statements as was seen in the case of his act of accepting the invitation extended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to join the Swachchh Bharat Abhiyan continued on Thursday also.
State Congress’s vice-president VD Satheesan said the criticisms against Tharoor were not over the support he aired for the Clean India campaign but over his tendency to praise Modi and BJP on all available occasions.
Satheesan said it was difficult to work with a person who took pro-BJP position.The Kerala PCC had on Wednesday decided to ask the national leadership to take action against Tharoor. A meeting of the top KPCC leadership had also decided to hand over to the high command a report giving details of the alleged pro-BJP and pro-Modi statements and Twitter tweets he had made.
According to reports from Delhi, the national leadership is unlikely to take stringent action against Tharoor as it cannot antagonize one of its MPs at this juncture. It is said that the high command may hand over the KPCC’s report to the party disciplinary committee.