Asserting that he is in the “right party”, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday said he had chosen Congress from among the major political outfits, including the BJP and the Left, which had approached him to join them after he left services at the United Nations.
“... it gets asked often and almost no day goes by on social media without somebody asking that question. Let me tell you when I decided to leave the UN, in fact shortly after I stepped back from the race for the secretary general, it is true that every major political formation in this country approached me,” Tharoor said in response to a question if he was the “right man in the wrong party”.
“I was approached by a BJP former minister in the Vajpayee government who came to see me at my office in New York. I was approached by some one from the Left in Trivandrum (Thiruvanathapuram), and I was approached by my own party, what became my own party,” claimed Tharoor, who had joined the Congress in 2009. The two-time Thiruvananthapuram MP was responding to questions after delivering a keynote address on the topic ‘India in today’s networked world’ at the Indian Institute of Management-Bengaluru’s first global alumni conclave and leadership summit ‘IIMBUE’ here.
Pointing out that he has attacked all parties equally as a writer, Tharoor said he had been a fierce critic of the Emergency, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Babri Masjid demolition and the rise of Hindutva politics.