Newly elevated Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Shashi Tharoor, MP, on Friday said the Centre’s opaque and seemingly impromptu decision to convene the Lok Sabha for five days from September 18 to 22 was perplexing and cloaked in conspiratorial silence.
“There is no clarity on the agenda. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)‘s visceral fear that voters will reject the party in the 2024 polls might have prompted the move,” Mr. Tharoor said at a press conference.
He said the BJP’s One Nation One election scheme was myopic. It would yield no tangible political dividend for the BJP.
“The BJP will not bag a single seat in Kerala or Tamil Nadu even if it implemented the scheme. The proposal might yield some unquantifiable short-term political advantage for the BJP. Nevertheless, it is a patently improvident political move,” Mr. Tharoor said.
Mr. Tharoor mocked pollsters obsessed with handing over a Lok Sabha election win to the BJP in 2024. He said a prominent pro-BJP media organisation had relied on questionable polling methods to award the BJP the Parliament in 2024.
“The pollster’s survey was limited to 25,000 relatively well-heeled mobile phone users. The agency has no clarity on whether its poll reflected the opinion of common folk. There is also no information on whether the poll covered a cross-section of voters and factored in age, caste, religion, provincial, and age demographics,” he said. He said the poll’s conclusion was laughable.
Mr. Tharoor denied he operated politically outside the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee’s ambit to carve out a personal constituency for himself in Kerala and outside.
“I had much time on my hands after I lost the All India Congress Committee (AICC) presidential election. Hence, I heeded a few invitations and public speaking assignments. The media construed it as political bridge-building and organisational one-upmanship,” Mr. Tharoor said.
He said the AICC had not sidelined senior leader Ramesh Chennithala. “He is a permanent invitee to the CWC. Nobody discounts his stature in State and national politics. If Mr. Chennithala has any grievance, the AICC will address it,” Mr. Tharoor said.
He said Mr. Chennithala had not returned his call. “In politics, it is important that one looks forward and not burden oneself with the past,” Mr.Tharoor said.
