Tharoor’s popularity cause for concern among Congress top brass in Kerala?

Tharoor was projected as a future Chief Minister candidate of Congress in Kerala by his supporters and well-wishers during his campaign

Shashi Tharoor seems to have caused ripples in the Kerala unit of the Congress party by proving he has a sizeable support base in the state in the just concluded party president election. Reportedly, there are even campaigns emerging that project Tharoor as Congress’s prospective Kerala Chief Minister candidate.

In Kerala, Tharoor managed to get a considerable number of votes in the poll for the post of party national chief, with those in favour of him estimating he got at least 130 of the 287 votes cast in the state. This despite all top Kerala Congress leaders, overtly and covertly, expressing their disapproval, and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K Sudhakaran calling Tharoor a “trainee” in politics.

Tharoor was projected as a future Chief Minister candidate of Congress in Kerala by his supporters and well-wishers, including noted personalities, during his campaign.

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Writer N S Madhavan, in a tweet, said that Congress leaders in Kerala vehemently opposed Tharoor, because they were afraid that Tharoor may emerge as a compromise candidate—in case of there is infighting among the leaders of various groups within the Kerala unit of Congress—for the chief minister’s post if the party comes to power in the state.

Many other Tharoor supporters on social media also projected him as a future Chief Minister—some of them even calling him a Prime Minister-probable of Kerala.

Ahead of the party’s presidential election, a senior Congress leader had told DH that Tharoor was gaining popularity among social media users, as well as non-voters, only due to his profile and not his political career.

Hence, the anti-Tharoor camps were only expecting a very thin vote share for Tharoor in the election.

Another source in the party said that Tharoor would mostly be focusing on national politics. It is already his third term as a Thiruvananthapuram MP. Being a person of international fame, even Tharoor may not prefer to restrict himself as a state chief minister. The Congress national leadership might also prefer him to take up key roles at the national level.

Although there was a silent claim that Tharoor might quit Congress if he failed miserably in the presidential election, Congress leaders including former MLA K S Sabarinadhan, who openly supported Tharoor, had rejected such campaigns.