Amidst speculations that the mysterious death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar may put an end to the political career of Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor, a large section of the Congress in Kerala has launched a determined bid to ensure that he does not get the ticket to contest the lok Sabha polls from his sitting seat, Thiruvananthapuram.
The mystery surrounding the death of Sunanda Pushkar has emboldened the Congress leaders in Kerala, who had unleashed an unsuccessful campaign in 2009 to thwart the parachuting of Tharoor by the party high command into Thiruvananthapuram, to come out openly against making him party candidate in the constituency for a second time.
The first salvo in this regard was fired by former Congress legislator George Mercier who said that Tharoor was now standing in the shadow of suspicions and it would be detrimental to the interests of the party to field him once again. Many other Congress leaders, several of them seat aspirants, have also come out against Tharoor.
“There is no doubt that Shashi Tharoor is presently standing in the shadow of a lot of suspicions. As far as the Congress is concerned, it should think of avoiding selecting a man who carries the burden of suspicions and think of someone who does not have any controversy attached to his name,” Mercier, a member of the Congress executive in Kerala, said.
A Tharoor-loyalist in the District Congress Committee in Thiruvananthapuram told The Pioneer that the certain forces within the party which had so far been lying low because of their inability even to petition against Tharoor had now become active "just when the man is down and when he is going through one of the worst phases of his personal life".
Former PCC general secretary Rajmohan Unnithan, who has been vociferously defending Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on the issue of the infamous solar scam, has already made his desire to contest in the lok Sabha polls clear. "At least half a dozen Congressmen are in the queue for the Thiruvananthapuram seat," said a capital-based senior journalist.
Many Congress leaders in the State are still unable to solve the mystery behind the parachuting of Tharoor into Thiruvananthapuram by the high command in 2009, ending the dreams of many seat aspirants and triggering dissent in the party. It was said that even State party president Ramesh Chennithala had no clue about Tharoor's candidature till his name was announced.
However, Tharoor overcame the dissent with diplomacy - and with money, say some critics. At the end of a costly campaign, Tharoor had managed to get one of the biggest margins - of 99,998 votes - the Congress had ever managed to bag in Thiruvananthapuram. "That one performance had forced his critics in the party to shut up," said the Tharoor-loyalist.
Top Congress leaders now say that the party cannot afford to field Tharoor in any of the 20 seats in Kerala in the existing political circumstance where the Congress-led ruling UDF was facing a huge loss of popularity and the Centre to which Tharoor belongs is seen as a source of anti-people policies.
However, there are people within the Congress who feel that only Tharoor or someone like him can ensure the party's victory in Thiruvananthapuram especially as the BJP, re-energized by the wave set off by its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, is threatening to eat into its support base.