Page 11 - Shashi Tharoor

Current govt reduced Parliament to notice board, rubber stamp: Tharoor

The BJP government has successfully reduced Parliament to a "notice board and a rubber stamp", Congress MP Shashi Tharoor alleged at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Friday

Entirely possible for BJP to lose majority in 2024: Shashi Tharoor

It will be "impossible" for the BJP to replicate its 2019 electoral triumph in 2024, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor claimed on Friday, and added that it is "conceivable" that the ruling party can lose "50 seats" in the Lok Sabha. The Thiruvananthapuram MP, who was speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival here, said while he concedes the BJP's dominance, it is also a fact that they have lost many states and them losing the central government is not impossible. "If you look at how well they (the BJP) did in 2019, they have essentially had every seat in Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan; or all but one seat in Bihar, MP (Madhya Pradesh), Maharashtra; and 18 seats in Bengal. "Now, all of those results are impossible to replicate and the BJP dropping below the majority in 2024 is entirely possible," Tharoor argued during a session titled 'India@75: A walk through the Democratic Institutions'. Terming the Pulwama attacks and the Balakot strike, which he said led to a "tremendous wave"

Despite being educated, unemployment rate high among Kerala youth: Tharoor

Unemployment rate among the youth in Kerala is huge and there is a need to make the state more attractive for its younger generation to prevent them from going outside for jobs, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor said on Monday. Tharoor, speaking at the inauguration of the 146th Mannam Jayanthi celebration at the Nair Service Society (NSS) headquarters at Perunna in Changanassery here, said unemployment among the youth in Kerala was 40 per cent in June 2022. Mannam Jayanthi is held to celebrate the birth anniversary of NSS founder and social reformer Mannath Padmanabhan. He said only Jammu and Kashmir was in such a situation, but that was due to militancy problems there. "No other state is showing such concerning figures of unemployment among the youth. In other states those uneducated or unskilled are the ones lacking jobs. However, in Kerala everyone is literate, educated and has passed class 10, yet a lot of them do not have jobs," the Thiruvananthapuram MP ...

Shashi Tharoor an asset to party, says Kerala state Congress chief

The statement came in the wake of reports of a tussle inside the Congress' state unit after Shashi Tharoor actively started participating in events and meeting with religious and political leaders

Sunanda Pushkar death: Police move HC against Shashi Tharoor's discharge

The Delhi police moved the Delhi High Court on Thursday against the discharge of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in the case of his wife Sunanda Pushkar's death, more than 15 months after a city court let him off, and sought condonation of delay in filing the revision petition. The high court sought Tharoor's response to the plea by the Delhi police and listed the matter for hearing on February 7, 2023. The Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram was discharged of all offences like cruelty and abetment to suicide in August 2021, more than seven years after his businesswoman wife Pushkar was found dead in a luxury hotel in the national capital. Pushkar was found dead in a suite of a luxury hotel on the night of January 17, 2014. The couple had been staying in the hotel as Tharoor's official bungalow was being renovated at the time. After Tharoor's counsel referred to the protracted delay, Justice D K Sharma issued a notice to the Congress leader and sought his reply to the police's ...

Delhi Police moves HC against Tharoor's discharge in Sunanda Pushkar case

The city police on Thursday approached the Delhi High Court challenging a trial court's 2021 order discharging Congress leader Shashi Tharoor in connection with his wife Sunanda Pushkar's death case. Justice D K Sharma asked the counsel for the Delhi Police to supply the copy of its petition to Tharoor's counsel, who claimed the plea was not served to him and it was "deliberately" sent on a wrong email id. The high court also issued notice and sought response of Tharoor on an application by police seeking to condone the delay in filing the revision petition against the trial court's August 18, 2021 order. It also directed that copies and documents relating to the case shall not be supplied to any other person except the parties. The high court listed the matter for hearing on February 7, 2023. Tharoor was discharged in the case more than seven years after businesswoman Pushkar was found dead in a luxury hotel here. Pushkar, a prominent face in Delhi circles, was found dead in a s

Not upset or angry with anyone in party: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said he was not upset or angry with anyone in the Kerala unit of the party and has no reservations in speaking to anyone as "we are not in kindergarten to refrain from talking to each other". Speaking to media in the port city of Kochi, where he came to attend a state-level conclave of the All India Professionals' Congress, the Thiruvananthapuram MP said he has not spoken against anyone in the party or acted against its directives and has no clue why such a controversy has been created. "I am not upset or angry with anyone. I have not blamed or accused anyone. There are no complaints or issues from my end. I have no problem seeing everyone as one and neither do I have any reservations about speaking to anyone," he said before the event. On being asked whether he would be speaking to Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state assembly V D Satheesan and Kerala PCC (KPCC) president K Sudhakaran at the event, Tharoor said that the latter was not well an

No parallel activities can be allowed in Congress in Kerala: V D Satheesan

Apparently rattled by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's Malabar tour, Leader of Opposition in the Kerala assembly, V D Satheesan on Tuesday said any kind of sectarianism or parallel activities would not be allowed in the party and warned that such moves would be dealt with "seriously." The state unit of the Congress is on a comeback path in the state after two consecutive debacles in the Assembly elections and it is not healthy enough to afford any more parallel activities by anyone, Satheesan told reporters here. His remarks come as a significant section of the Congress party in the state was unhappy with Tharoor's ongoing tour. Asked about Tharoor's Malabar tour, Satheesan said every leader has a space within the Congress and no one is against it, but the party has its own mechanisms and systems. "The Congress in Kerala is not at all healthy to afford any more parallel activities...after suffering two drubbings in the assembly polls, the party is on a comeback mode in the state. ...

I don't fear anyone, no one needs to fear me: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday, while continuing his Malabar tour, met senior leaders of UDF-ally IUML at Panakkad here and also said that he fears no one and there is no reason for anyone to fear him. In response to a query by the media as to who was afraid of his tour in Kerala, Tharoor said, "I do not fear anyone and there is no need for anyone to be afraid of me." His remarks assume significance amidst speculation that some of the Congress leadership in Kerala appear to be apprehensive over the increasing support he was enjoying and the emergence of a 'Tharoor group' within the party in the state. Tharoor, however, downplayed his meeting with the IUML leaders at the residence of Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal by saying that it was just a courtesy call on the way to an event in the district. Other senior Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leaders present there also termed his visit as nothing unusual and said they all go and meet Thangal whenever they pass through the area. The

Caste consciousness is greater today than in 1950s: Shashi Tharoor

There is greater consciousness of caste in Indian society today compared to the decade after independence, Congress MP and author Shashi Tharoor said here on Saturday. Speaking during a discussion on The lost legacy of Ambedkar at the Tata Literature Festival, he said now every caste is conscious of its identity, and this "identity label has become a marker for political mobilization." Tharoor's book "Ambedkar: A Life, a biography of Dr B R Ambedkar, was launched during the program. Ambedkar wanted to completely destroy the caste system and he will probably be horrified to realize that, if anything, the caste system is more and more entrenched in the political parties, he said. To a question from the audience, Tharoor, the third-term MP from Thiruvananthapuram, noted that the political parties which are against discrimination or untouchability nonetheless seek votes in the name of caste. The caste system is "far from annihilated", he added. Both Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru want

UK PM Sunak: Tharoor stirs Twitter storm after 'visible minority' remark

With many in India expressing their happiness, including Sunak's father-in-law and founder of Infosys Narayana Murthy, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has stirred up a storm on Twitter

Kharge's presidency of Congress in Modi era is a poisoned chalice

It's time to admit the Congress's problem is not, in fact, the Gandhis. If anything, they hold together a party that would otherwise split into multiple factions

Kharge can't revive Congress, but the party's vote share may rise in 2024

After 10 years in power and with all-round economic distress, it would be a miracle if the BJP didn't lose around 3 percentage points from its 2019 share of 37.36 per cent

Clear from beginning that Cong establishment will choose Kharge: Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor who lost to Mallikarjun Kharge in the Congress presidential election said that it was clear from the beginning that the party's establishment would rally behind his opponent

Mistry slams Tharoor over allegations of 'irregularities' in Cong prez poll

Congress central election authority chairman Madhusudan Mistry on Thursday accused Shashi Tharoor's team of having two faces -- one for the party's poll body and another for the media -- as he rejected allegations of irregularities during the just-concluded AICC presidential poll, according to sources. In his response to Team Tharoor's letter in which "extremely serious irregularities" were flagged in the conduct of the election in Uttar Pradesh, Mistry said the poll body satisfied the candidate on every complaint but despite that he raised all those points in the media before bringing them to "our notice". "I am sorry to say that you had one face before me which communicated that you're satisfied with all our answers and action and different face in the media which made all these allegations against us," Mistry said in his letter to Tharoor's chief election agent Salman Soz, according to sources. The campaign team of Tharoor, who lost the party's presidential polls to Mallikarjun .

Mallikarjun Kharge: Some lesser known facts about Congress' 98th president

Interim president Sonia Gandhi met Kharge today and congratulated him for winning the elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also extended his wishes to Kharge

Mallikarjun Kharge faces multiple challenges in new role as Congress chief

He is the first non-Gandhi president of the party in more than 20 years

Will Kharge be a rubber stamp or a connect between party and family?

Kharge began life as a trade union lawyer and knows what it is to struggle

Shashi Tharoor: Lost Cong prez poll but not before making himself heard

He lost the election but Shashi Tharoor managed to score many a political point during his campaign for Congress president, a contest he lost to veteran party colleague Mallikarjun Kharge who was favoured to win. The author, wordsmith, former UN diplomat and social media pioneer with 8.3 million followers on Twitter demonstrated during the last few weeks that he is quite the opposite of a quockerwodger', a politically loaded term for a wooden puppet he introduced into our lexicon, and is instead independent minded, making moves on his own terms. Tharoor's loss is reminiscent of his electoral run in the 2006 UN secretary general poll in which he was defeated by South Korea's Ban Ki-moon but not before creating a strong buzz. It was in that contest perhaps that he first displayed his stomach for an electoral fight against daunting odds. That the often outspoken Tharoor managed 1,072 votes against perceived Gandhi favourite Kharge's 7,897 in the presidential election, only the sixth i

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