" Shashi Tharoor should lie low for some time if he plans to continue in politics", feels Kalyani Shankar.

Opinion
       04/11/2018
                 1519.

The mistakes Shashi Tharoor made : Kalyani Shankar.

REMEDY PRESCIBED : " Shashi Tharoor should lie low for some time if he plans to continue in politics", feels Kalyani Shankar.

1. Shashi Tharoor has left South Block unsung and unwept. Whoever thought that it would be such a short career for the high-profile minister? However, he had brought it upon himself by his own follies.

2. Would Shashi, as his friends know him, have survived if he had been more careful? Does he have the qualities of a successful politician who should have base, support and clean image? He began well with the blessings of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and also the prime minister. They had shown their support and tolerated his mistakes these past 10 months. The media too liked him for his telegenic face.

3. What is Shashi's background? He had been a bureaucrat in the United Nations for many years. He had come close to then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. Once Annan became the UN chief, Shashi's career also bloomed. Annan, who even supported his candidature to succeed him, fully backed him. Shashi persuaded Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh to support him as India's candidate despite the negative reports from the ministry of external affairs. He lost to the Korean candidate Ban Ki-moon. Now after the present scandal about Shashi's close friend's sweat equity in the IPL-Kochi franchise, many wonder how India could have supported his candidature.

4. What were Shashi' mistakes which came in the way of his success? First of all, he continued to live in the past and behaved like the international bureaucrat while had had moved on in life to become a politician in India and also a minister. Although he switched over to wearing an angavastram and Nehru jacket, his lifestyle did not change.

5. Without realising that the Congress culture would not allow him to live an opulent life, he occupied a suite in a five star hotel after his election instead of staying in Kerala Bhavan or any other place allotted to him by Parliament. When this came under the media glare, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had to tell him to move out of the hotel.

6. Secondly, Tharoor did not learn any thing from his past mistakes and continued to think that no one can touch him. He should have realised what a politician's life in India is, particularly from a highly political state like Kerala. He was being watched through a microscope but he did not notice this.

7. Many other politicians use their clout for various things but they are careful about how they do it. Tharoor used his personal clout as a minister for the high-profile Kochi IPL negotiations. The 'sweat equity' given to his friend Sunanda Pushkar is seen as an impropriety, which as a minister he could ill afford.

8. Thirdly, friends and supporters are very essential for a politician. It is their pressure and support, which helps a politician to flourish. The local people resented Shashi because they felt he has been brought from outside and thrust on them. The Congress went out of the way in ensuring his success in the Lok Sabha election.

9. Kerala politicians know how to nurture their constituency but in Tharoor's case, he neither befriended his colleagues nor was he available to his constituents with the result he had no support from his state.

Fourthly, having won the seat with a handsome majority, Shashi was lobbying for the post of Cabinet minister for the external affairs ministry. However, he had to be content with becoming a junior minister in that ministry. Once he started going to his South Block office, he began to make embarrassing statements on his ministry and often had to be told to keep quiet. He neither befriended his officers nor his senior minister (S M Krishna) who began to see him as a threat. Ultimately, whenever he put his foot in his mouth, there was no support from them.

11. Fifthly, Tharoor did not make sure that as a minister he should leave no trail even if he was indulging in financial bargains with the IPL managers. His biggest mistake was to get the 'sweat equity' to his close friend Pushkar, who had no credentials to get such a bonanza. Even his party leaders did not believe that he had no financial involvement in the IPL deal. That is why the prime minister and Sonia Gandhi let him go, bowing to party pressure.

12. Sixthly, his continuous efforts to bring the government and the party to embarrassment were not liked by the party bosses. His calling the economy class as the cattle class was jarring for a party, which was claiming to fight for the 'aam admi'. His frequent tweets also became an embarrassment.

13. Tharoor added to these by speaking out of turn when he had gone with the prime minister to Saudi Arabia recently. The party did not take any action on all these but when the IPL controversy came, it was beyond the party and the prime minister to defend him any more. This was visible when the party distanced itself from the controversy asking Tharoor to defend himself.

14. Seventhly, he adopted a brazen attitude towards the IPL controversy going to the extent of even declaring that he would not resign even as the party bosses were watching his every move. Subsequently, he had to eat his words and put in his papers.

15. Last but not least, Tharoor took on somebody like IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi who had some powerful backers. When the scandal broke out, Tharoor was left without any backing from any quarters and had to defend himself.

16. LESSON : " The lesson Shashi should learn now is that he has to play by the rules of the game and cannot have his own rules. At least now he should realise the mistakes and lie low for some time if he proposes to continue in politics. If he feels enough is enough, then he has other options to choose. He has opened the IPL can of worms. One has to see where it leads him."

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NOTE : IMMATURE SHASHI THAROOR STUPID COMMENTS -

1. Shashi Tharoor Mocks Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Says He is a Hero on a White Stallion With Upraised Sword; The coming Lok Sabha election is important in that it will deny the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term in power, the Congress MP said. -PTI

2.  Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling him a "hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand".  Tharoor had waded into a controversy at the Bangalore Literature Festival Sunday last by claiming that an unnamed RSS leader had compared Modi to "a scorpion sitting on a Shivling" and "you cannot remove him with your hand and you cannot hit it with a chappal either".

3. A criminal defamation complaint had been filed against him in a Delhi court earlier in the day for his "scorpion" remark. Tharoor again took a swipe at the prime minister, calling him "a hero on a white stallion with an upraised sword in his hand saying I know all the answers".  "Modi is a one-man government and everybody dancing to what he says," he said at an event organised by an industry body, adding India now has the "most centralised PMO" in history. "Every decision is taken by the PMO (prime minister's office). Every file has to be sent to the PMO for approval," he claimed.

4. On the next parliamentary election, Tharoor said that there will be both pre-poll and post-poll alliances between the Congress and other opposition parties, but Congress president Rahul Gandhi "may not be" the prime ministerial face.

5. The coming Lok Sabha election is important in that it will deny the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a second term in power, the Congress MP said. 9. He said the decision on the prime ministerial face of the Congress alliance would be a collective one and "it may not be him (Gandhi). The Congress has a broader notion of a leader unlike the BJP. We had people like Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and others having tremendous track record".

6. Gandhi is the unquestionable choice of Congress workers as their leader. "If free and fair elections are held among the Congress workers, Rahul Gandhi wins hands down," the Congress MP said. Continuing his criticism of the Modi government, Tharoor said, "We are having a top-down, over-centralised and inefficient government running the country and there is nothing positive in the Indian economy."

7. "Demonetisation was a bad idea implemented badly and GST was a good idea implemented badly," Tharoor said. He said that the Indian stock is down across the globe. "The rupee was heading towards the 'Margdarshak Mandal' (a reference to a BJP panel comprising its elderly leaders)," he quipped and later clarified that the BJP panel had leaders above the age of 75. He said that communalism, cow vigilantism and mob lynching have been so extreme that India had never seen such "bizarre politics in the past".

8. "There are damning statistics to prove that," he added. Tharoor, who was the minister of state for external affairs in the UPA government and is currently chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, said there was "total collapse of relations between India with other countries".

"Nobody knows what is the coherent foreign relations policy with Pakistan, similarly with Nepal and Sri Lanka," he said.

9. Tharoor regretted that Gandhi is being dubbed a 'Pappu' by some in the social media. "This is not fair and it is unjustified. Congress workers are really stitched to the Gandhi family and want their leader to be from there," he said.

Regarding the Sabarimala temple controversy, Tharoor said, "These issues are being whipped up to distract attention from the real problems like oil price rise, Rafale deal, etc."

10. Speaking at another programme, he alleged that the trend of erecting statues and raising the issue of Ram temple in Ayodhya were attempts to distract the masses from "failures" of the BJP government at the Centre. He said the trend of erecting statues reminded him of the Roman empire when people where distracted from the oppression they faced through 'bread and circuses' (distribution of free food and staging of huge spectacles).

11. "The issues of Statue of Unity, Ram temple, Ram statue at Ayodhya are distractions. I would urge the public of India to move away from these distractions and focus on the realities and lives of the Indians," the Congress MP said. "The reality is the Indian Aam Aadmi (common man) has been suffering for the last four and half years... This suits the agenda of the government that has failed to perform," he said.

12. Tharoor's comment comes in the backdrop of plans to install a statue of Lord Ram on the banks of the Sarayu river in Ayodhya. Joining the chorus for the construction of Ram temple in the Uttar Pradesh pilgrim town of Ayodhya, Union minister Vijay Goel had Friday said it should be done at the earliest through any means -- constitutional, legislative, judicial or community dialogue. The VHP and the RSS have demanded an ordinance to acquire land for constructing the temple in Ayodhya.

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OPINION : PM MODIJI RIGHT COMMENTS -

1. In a veiled retort to Congress president Rahul Gandhi who has  been reiterating the "chowkidar chor hai" jibe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the latter pressed his political opponents with "falsehood charge". "Some Opposition leaders are like machines of falsehood. Their mouths are like AK-47. Whenever they open it, they fire one lie after another," Modi said, while digitally interacting with BJP's booth-level workers in Tikamgarh, Sikar, Kota, Korba and Bulandshahr.

2. "Since they are resorting to a fake propaganda, it is necessary to expose them before the public," the Prime Minister told his party workers. "In Madhya Pradesh, they have no other agenda but to defame us with concocted charges," he added.

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LAST WORD :-

1. WHEN  MANY ADMIRE PM MODI JI VISION, AND HIS TIMELY EXECUTION OF PLANS, BUT JAUNDICE AFFECTED EYES OF SELF STYLED CORRUPTED OPPOSITION DO NOT SEE THE PROGRESS BHARATHAM MADE BY 2014;

2. NONE OF THE OPPOSITION NEVER COME FORWARD WITH ANY USEFUL SUGGESTIONS, THOUGH PM MODI JI DO NOT HESITATE TAKE SUGGESTIONS FROM ANY PERSONS FROM ANY CORNERS OF BHARATHAM;

3. ALL RATINGS SAY THAT WE ARE FAST DEVELOPING NATION, THEN WHY  THESE BUGGERS DO NOT APPRECIATE INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES REPORTS;

4. SHASHI THAROOR IF CONTINUES THIS WAY HE WILL BE LOST SOON HIS CREDIBILITY IN ALL SENSE.

5. SO TOO, IF THE CONGRESS, COMMUNISTS AND ALL STUPID SELF STYLED ONE PERSON OWNED MATCH STICK PARTIES SOON DISAPPEAR, IF THEY CONTINUE TO ABUSE PM AND BJP AT THE CENTRE, AND FAILING IN THEIR OWN RESPONSIBILITIES.

TOP HIT :

"DEAR SHASHI THAROOR WE CITIZENS OF THIS HOLY NATION ASK YOU WHAT IS YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO BHARATHAM TILL THIS DATE SINCE YOUR RETIREMENT, JOINING CONGRESS, BECOMING MP,  OTHER THAN ABUSING HINDUISM, ABUSING PM,
FINDING FAULT WITH EACH AND EVERYTHING OF THIS GOVERNMENT?"

JAIHIND
VANDEMATHARAM