TNCC cold shoulders Tharoor as 'leaders' stayed away

Congress Presidential candidate Shashi Tharoor on Thursday evening got a cold shoulder from party delegates in Tamil Nadu who are eligible to vote in the intra-party elections later this month as only a handful of the over 700 members attended his campaign meeting here.

Tharoor, who was on a day-long visit to Chennai to canvas for votes among the electoral college, visited Sathyamurthy Bhavan, HQ of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC), to meet the delegates and address the media to highlight his candidature.

Sources in the TNCC said only a few delegates met Tharoor and expressed support, while others stayed away from the campaign meeting. Karti P Chidambaram, Lok Sabha MP from Sivaganga who proposed Tharoor’s candidature and signed his nomination papers, was also conspicuous by his absence at the meeting.

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“Enjoyed a warm welcome at @INCTamilNadu from party colleagues, but no “leaders” present. At the ensuing press conference, the media alleged that office-bearers were told to stay away. Interestingly dozens of ordinary citizens attended, to show me their support,” Tharoor wrote on his verified Twitter page.

Tharoor taking to Twitter to express his displeasure didn’t go down well with a few leaders who asked him to stop portraying them as “cowards.” A senior TNCC leader who didn’t wish to be quoted said there was no instructions not to attend the campaign meeting called by Tharoor.

“He (Tharoor) should not make any such allegations without any basis. People stayed away on their own,” the leader added.

TNCC general secretary Lakshmi Ramachandran said: not attending the meeting was a she made and not out of fear of anyone. “By the way, it is only from the papers we got to know that you were coming. We got no information from your team. Please stop portraying us as cowards, sir,” she told Tharoor.

As many as 710 Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) members are eligible to vote in the elections to choose the new president of the Congress. While media reports said only 12 PCC delegates attended Tharoor’s meeting, a source in the TNCC put the number as three.

The TNCC in September passed a unanimous resolution asking Rahul Gandhi to take over as the Congress President. Tamil Nadu is one of the very few states where the Congress performed well in the 2019 elections owing to its alliance with the DMK, which is now the ruling party.

Several opinion polls conducted in the state have also placed Rahul Gandhi in a comfortable position when compared to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tamil Nadu. The Wayanad MP has also been talking about his “love” for Tamil and the people of Tamil Nadu inside and outside the Parliament.