How Shashi Tharoor the politician has come of age with his KCA spat

When Shashi Tharoor parachuted into Thiruvananthapuram from New York via Delhi four years ago, the instant reaction from the local Congress unit was outrage, sarcasm and intense resistance. But on Monday, Tharoor showed that he is a wily politician too - perhaps his first distinctive act of political coming of age. With unprecedented aggression, he took on the Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) when the final of the Duleep Trophy cricket match between the north and south zones were washed away due to a rain drenched ground. On Twitter, he said the KCA brought disgrace to the state and even insinuated corruption in the renovation of the stadium. Who benefited from the Rs eight crore spent on the drainage system, he asked, even as TV channels beamed shots of the outfield which looked like a marshland. “KCA annual reports list JNI Stadium upgradation expenditure in crores. Since pavilion was already done, wasn’t drainage the main expense?” he asked. The KCA president TC Mathew, who is considered to be close to BCCI President N Srinivasan and a recently appointee to head the Indian Cricket Academy, tried to be equally aggressive. He said that Tharoor was trying to sabotage KCA’s attempts to build its own international stadium in Kochi. “Those who wish that KCA should not have a stadium of its own are trying to create a controversy. We have not taken any amount from the government for drainage work,” he reportedly said. [caption id=“attachment_1191411” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Tharoor was initially seen as an outsider in Kerala politics. PTI[/caption] There were suggestions that Tharoor was playing spoilsport because he failed to get into the KCA. The Association also managed to get a local Congress leader to charge Tharoor with batting for the Thiruvananthapuram lobby. The Tharoor-KCA scrap hit the headlines in the state’s TV channels and became the subject of prime time discussion. But the Tharoor had really come of political age was evident the next day. For the first time, he had a band of slogan-shouting youth Congress workers storm into the KCA office and hold the office-bearers hostage. Finally the KCA officials had to give an apology in writing, which said ““We are sorry for hurting the sentiments of the minister.” Tharoor won and KCA lost. The most striking feature of the tussle was that for the first time Tharoor looked like a seasoned politician who could show his political might as well as muscle. It was surprising that a rank outsider, who is confined largely to the state-capital and Delhi with no major following in the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, had managed to arouse outrage among his party workers. It’s not a state secret that such attacks are normally engineered by the leaders themselves, unless the leader is really big. How did Tharoor manage such street support, that too in a distant Kochi? Did he engineer it or were those youngsters really outraged? Tharoor has been evolving into a full time politician over the last two years, but most of his public behaviour has been predictable and at best betrayed his ability to act like a politician. But what makes a politician successful is his/her wile and unabashed show of strength on the street. Four years ago, when he landed in Thiruvananthapuram, there was a minor revolt as the party regulars, particularly the sitting MP from the district, who didn’t want to lose their turf to a rank newcomer. Even the state unit of the Congress didn’t appear to be enthused by his candidature for the parliament elections although he was sent down by their bosses in Delhi. When efforts to sabotage his candidature didn’t work and the high command continued to support him, they took refuge in murmur campaigns that he would lose badly and their Delhi bosses would learn a bitter lesson. However, not only did Tharoor wow the state’s capital - particularly its women who thronged to see him - and campaign tirelessly in a new attire, he also won with an impressive margin of about 100,000 votes. He was still an outsider though who struggled with an accented Malayalam - an elite who appeared to love a good life. Periodic guffaws, a different lifestyle, his third wife, and finally the IPL-controversy added to the Tharoor legend, which many thought was nothing short of the foolishness of a political rookie. Wiley politicians, including members of the CPM, made fun of him and continued to dismiss the man as elite and unfit to represent people. Over the last two years Tharoor has silenced his detractors. He is by far the most visible representative of the state’s capital. He forever speaks for the city that he had never been a resident of prior to 2009. The man is almost always there dropping the ‘T’ word whenever there is some action of consequence - whether it is flagging off a new train; advising college and school kids about education and careers, speaking about Sachin Tendulkar (where he cleverly brings in Sanju Samson, the rising son of the soil) or standing next to the chief minister during the latter’s massive flagship outreach programme. Tharoor was still the polished UN guy who was trying to find his feet in the murky world of politics. A lot of people at the UN, at his level or lower, aspire to be politicians or influential people in their countries, and rush back home to either take up policy jobs or plunge into public life. There are many former UN folk who are either MPs, ministers or even heads of states across the world as well as political rejects. They tend to translate the ideas and best practices that they have learnt on their jobs in their new avatars and mostly end up looking like technocrats - some times they work, some times they don’t. Some get disgruntled and disappear into nothingness because they fail in the art of realpolitik. Most of the Congressmen in Kerala thought Tharoor would fail and disappear because politics is a different ballgame that takes a twisted mind and years to master. Before the scrap with the KCA, Tharoor had tried to gain some political mileage by locking horns with the local Mayor, who woefully failed to clear up the garbage that the boutique city was drowning in. Had he schemed, he could have certainly hit below the belt because the CPM-ruled city corporation had really failed in its civic responsibilities. But with the KCA, it was an all out attack - almost as if there was a strategy. When it was followed up with a physical show of strength, the politician in the outsider-elite has really come of age.