5 reasons why Tharoor had to resign

The seeds for the removal of Shashi Tharoor by the Congress were sown much before his eventual and formal dismissal by the Prime Minister. The first step towards the application of the sword was taken by the Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the composition of the two-man team which was to go into Tharoor’s role in the Kochi-IPL affair.

 

It was evident that the message from Sonia Gandhi was clear. The first of the two man committee Union Finance Minister was known to be enamoured of the MP from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. And, A K Anthony, the Union Minister for Defence, form Tharoor home state, has built a career on an obsessive penchant for sticking to the rules, without exception. One of the reasons for his being vested with the defence portfolio, where allurements and potential for corruption is high and has tripped the Congress in the past - Bofors, for instance.

The duo found that Tharoor had transgressed, if not the rules, the spirit of the propriety he was to demonstrate as a Union Minister. He was also perceived to have committed the cardinal sin of mixing politics, cricket and women (nay woman).

Sources said that Antony was very uncomfortable with the issue of Tharoor's dalliance with Sunanda Pushkar and Mukherjee, in turn, was miffed about the way the sweat equity was tailored in favour of Pushkar, which did not seem above board.

The only formality was to get a nod from 10 Janpath. And Sonia Gandhi did not want to give the crucial nod too soon because it was Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had picked up Tharoor for a career in politics. Hence, she wanted the PM to take make the formal announcement. Moreover, it is the PM's prerogative on who he keeps in the Union council of ministers.

Singh, unlike Sonia, gave a patient hearing to Tharoor. While Sonia dismissed the minister in 20 minutes, the Prime Minister lent his ears for over an hour. But by then Singh and Tharoor had no options because the signals from Sonia Gandhi's office were loud and clear.

The only thing that the PM did was to inform Sonia that Tharoor had submitted his resignation. Accept it and forward it to the President, Sonia said and Tharoor's fate was formally sealed.


But why did the Congress take such a stand? Here are five reasons:

NOT OUR BABY

The Congress felt that they were defending a weak case. After all, the IPL was not its baby and by defending Shashi Tharoor it would be indirectly defending the IPL which is already mired in controversies. So, why give ammunition for the Opposition which was already fired up over the Tharoor issue. The Tharoor IPL `volcano' was already spewing enough ash threatening to cloud Parliament's proceedings. Hence, the Congress was keen to take the wind away from the Opposition's sails.

The Core Group of the Congress was understood to have concluded that Tharoor's argument that he had nothing to do Pushkar getting free equity in Rendezvous Sports World Ltd was untenable.

Top decision makers of the party were said to have been of the view that the party's and the government's image could not be risked to defend an individual's interest. Besides, the Opposition parties, which already planned to bring cut motions on the Finance Bill, were unrelenting in their demand for the minister's sacking and were set to use Tharoor's case to further embarrass the government in the remaining part of the Budget session.

The government was also not inclined to antagonise the opposition further given that it needs their support for contentious legislations like the Women's Reservation Bill and Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.


AN IDEAL SACRFICIAL GOAT

Tharoor is hardly a political heavyweight. He neither has a support base in his Thiruvananthapuram constituency nor does he have enough clout in Delhi. Sacrificing Tharoor would hardly create any tremors within the Government or the Congress. Moreover, many senior ministers were upset at his penchant for running into controversies. This is after all not the first time that Tharoor dived headlong into controversies.

Though an accomplished writer who also has had a reasonably good stint as a diplomat at the United Nations, Tharoor showed remarkable immaturity in his short political career which began just before the general elections last year, in which he won the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket.

It all started with a report in The Indian Express in September last year that revealed that Tharoor and his senior minister in the Ministry of External Affairs S M Krishna were staying at a five-star hotel, and not at their official residences. Both the ministers had pleaded that they were paying the hotel bills out of their own pockets and were staying there only because their official residences were not ready. Both of them were asked to shift to more humble accommodations.

While Krishna, being an astute politician that he is, kept quiet after that, Tharoor repeatedly mocked the decision and went on to make his famous 'cattle class' comment -- asked on Twitter whether he would henceforth fly 'cattle class' in aeroplanes, he replied, "Yes, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows". That comment ridiculed the government's austerity drive, launched when the country faced a drought, and immediately made Tharoor extremely unpopular in the party and the government.

But that was just the beginning for Tharoor, whose constant updates on Twitter, even about official meetings, had started becoming extremely irksome for the government. Barely had the uproar over his 'cattle class' comment subsided, he shot his off mouth again, this time questioning the logic in having a holiday on Gandhi Jayanti.

More followed. He publicly differed with Home Minister P Chidambaram's efforts to tighten the visa regime in the wake of the David Headley affair and then was reported to have questioned the continuance of Nehruvian foreign policy in the country.

He was perceived to have exceeded his brief again when, travelling with the Prime Minister on a visit to Saudi Arabia, he suggested that Saudi Arabia could act as an 'interlocutor' between India and Pakistan. India has always been against any third party involvement in its bilateral issues with Pakistan, and Tharoor's statement was a clear deviation from New Delhi's stated foreign policy.

Sacrificing Tharoor would be like hitting two birds in one shot. The Government could abruptly end the IPL row and also please the Tharoor baiters within the Government and the Congress. In short, he was the ideal sacrificial goat.


DID HE LIE?

In the initial stages and his latest statement on Tuesday, Tharoor had been saying that he has only `blessed' the Kochi IPL team. In an official statement, he had said: "I am proud to have helped the consortium come to Kerala. I have neither invested nor received a rupee for my mentorship of the team. Whatever my personal relationships with any of the consortium members, I do not intend to benefit in any way financially from my association with the team now or at a later stage".

If so, how come Sunanda Pushkar, who is supposed to be a close friend as of now, got stakes in the IPL team worth a whopping Rs 70 crore?

IS THIS HIS JOB?

Tharoor-baiters say that as Minister of State Tharoor is doing everything except managing external affairs. Why should a minister be involved in promoting a team? Even if he was interested in promoting his State, he should be been above board in the matter. After blessing the move to have an IPL team for Kerala, he should have moved out of the scene. This is what some party men argue.

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OR PERSONAL AFFAIRS

While Tharoor's friendship with Sunanda Pushkar may be a private affair, `traditionalists' in the Congress are upset at a third marriage of a high profile minister occupying political centre stage. The Opposition and the media are likely to dig some muck on Sunanda. Even if they were far from truth, the party will be forced to do some damage control. Nobody is ready to take on this role.

Tharoor was initially silent on the stakes held by his fiancée. All that he says is that a consortium led by Rendezvous was set up to bid for an IPL team. "They approached me for help and guidance. I steered them towards Kerala. Rendezvous includes a number of people, including many I have never met, and Sunanda Pushkar, whom I know well".

He further stated that "contemptible efforts have been made to drag in matters of my personal life which I do not intend to dignify by commenting on them."

WHO TOOK THE CALL

There are two versions on who took the call on Shashi Tharoor. One section in the Congress believes that it was Rahul Gandhi who told his mother to axe Tharoor from the ministry and end the controversy. Rahul Gandhi took the stand that the Government had better things to do rather than defend Tharoor in Parliament. The case was weak, and why spend steam trying to defend it?
Moreover, why give the Opposition a stick to beat the Congress?

Another version is that Pranab Mukherjee took a hard stand after going through the sweat equity clauses that favoured Sunanda Pushkar. He was upset at how a minister could support such clauses, some of which were unheard of in contract laws in India.

To add to the mess, Tharoor's aide Jacob Joseph has called IPL commissioner Lalit Modi a "convicted drug peddler", which furthered that Tharoor was entering deep and murky waters, which a Union Minister was well advised to keep away from.
 

(Via: India Syndicate and The Indian Express)