Sacking Shashi Tharoor: Three key questions about his 'cardinal sin'

New Delhi: A leopard cannot change its spots. That is the dictum that the Congress lives by when it comes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and anyone in the party who thinks otherwise will have to pay a price for it. On Monday, Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala and former minister, was made to do so for committing the cardinal sin of being seen to be turning pro-Modi. The former UN diplomat was removed from the panel of spokespersons after a three-member national Disciplinary Committee went by the state unit’s recommendation to act against him. [caption id=“attachment_1755137” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Shashi Tharoor in a file photo. AFP[/caption] The immediate context for the punishment was his willingness to become one of the brand ambassadors for the Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan or Clean India programme launched on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary on 2 October and the spate of positive statements he has been making ever since the Modi became prime minister. This includes his controversial article in early June in Huffington Post where he said that it would be churlish if the party did not acknowledge Modi’s inclusive and conciliatory language and attempt to reinvent himself from a “hate figure into an avatar of modernity and progress”. He followed it up by going to the US and appearing on television programmes as an expert commentator on Modi’s visit to New York and Washington. Indeed, there is a section in the party which believes that his removal as spokespersons is a punishment that is grossly inadequate and he should have been expelled for increasingly becoming a law unto himself. Seen as a paratrooper by the Kerala unit when he was fielded as candidate in 2009, Tharoor survived essentially because he had the backing of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. But the latest episode centering him raises a number of questions. One among these is whether the party was being even handed in its approach while dealing with the issue? Like Tharoor, there have been other voices from within the Congress who have also been openly praising the Modi regime on some issue or the other. There have been reports that senior Congress leader and former J&K chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had appreciated the prime minister’s prompt response to the flood situation in his home state. For that matter, so did Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh who would lose no opportunity otherwise to target Modi, the BJP and the Hindutva forces. His Rajya Sabha colleague Abhishek Manu Singhvi too maintained that no one can oppose the PM’s I-Day speech per se but the actions and words of his party and government belie the sentiments expressed about inclusion and inclusion. And former finance minister P Chidambaram was restrained when it came to Modi’s first budget. So if action was taken against Tharoor, how is it that there were no complaints against those who heaped praise on Modi on similar occasions. Was it because that unlike the others, whose remarks were one shot comments, was Tharoor doing it much too often for the party’s comfort? Grilled on the issue, spokesperson Shobha Oza tried to side step the issue by claiming that action against Tharoor was not limited to one issue but a body of complaints. She also claimed that when a spokesman speaks, he essentially articulates the party’s views unlike any other leader who may be expressing his or her personal view on a subject. Secondly, does the Congress need to draw a distinction between Modi the BJP leader and Modi the prime minister who invited Tharoor to be a brand ambassador for Swachh Bharat? Was the Congress, whether the Kerala unit or the AICC, being “churlish’’ in hoping that Tharoor had steered clear of it no matter how laudable the objective? Thirdly, was Tharoor aware of the political repercussions of his actions that were being interpreted as pro-Modi and was he deliberately making such statements to move closer to the ruling dispensation? Tharoor himself could not but have been aware of the delicacy of the political situation. After all, he and controversies have been inseparable partners. And each time, he has banged against a controversy he has had to pay a personal, political or governmental price. He hit the headlines for the wrong reasons when after being appointed as a minister in his first term as MP, he stayed in a five star hotel despite instructions to maintain austerity. He was dropped as minister for his role in getting his wife Sunanda Pushkar a sweat equity in the Kochi-IPL team. He was rapped for his “travelling cattle class” remarks. His hacked-twitter account about his marital problems stirred a hornet’s nest. His wife’s unnatural death raised questions which continue to cast their long shadow over his life and politics. And now he is at the centre of yet another controversy over what his Kerala colleagues believe is his growing adulation for Modi. Like a cat with nine lives, Tharoor had survived and bounced back after each controversy so much so that he was reinducted in the Manmohan Singh cabinet two-and-half years after he was dropped from the council of ministers. Will he tide over this controversy as well and rehabilitated once the dust has settled?