Why Shashi Tharoor remains persona non grata in Kerala Congress?

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor seems to have rubbed his party colleagues in Kerala the wrong way by hinting at his shift to state politics.  

Many Kerala Congress leaders are up in arms against him over his proposed move to contest the next assembly elections in the state. Initially having expressed willingness to be the Congress party’s chief ministerial candidate in the 2026 assembly elections in Kerala, Tharoor later backtracked insisting that he was not ready for that role yet. 

The Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram maintained that he would continue to work the way he had been doing for the past 14 years.

Almost all top Kerala Congress leaders, including state unit president K Sudhakaran and Ramesh Chennithala, had attacked Tharoor over his reported desire to be the next chief minister. “If someone has stitched a coat for the chief minister’s post, they should be ready to leave it behind and work for the success of the party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,” the veteran Congress leader had said sarcastically.

In his response, Tharoor replied, “Our Chief Ministers usually don't wear coats...I do not know who stitched the coat and when...You should ask the question to those who made such statements...not to me”.  

Congress general secretary in-charge of the organisation KC Venugopal, who also hails from Kerala, urged his party colleagues to refrain from making such comments. “Every Congress person must take up the responsibility to not shatter our dreams. We can discuss anything within our party. We must not give the media a chance to debate the things that are spoken between Congress leaders,” he cautioned.

But it is also a fact that Kerala Congress leaders have resented Tharoor ever since he joined politics and the grand old party in 2009. They considered him an elite outsider and he continues to remain so even after being a Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram for the past 14 years. In fact, his decision to contest the Congress president’s elections against the official nominee and veteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge had further antagonised them.

It is said that he secured over 100 out of the total 310 votes from Kerala in the Congress presidential polls despite all the senior leaders having vociferously campaigned against him. There are no official figures though as voting for the Congress president elections was held through a secret ballot.  

Some Kerala Congress leaders claim that if the party denies a ticket to Tharoor in the 2024 parliamentary elections, he may join other parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and might even contest as an independent candidate with Left support. 

According to this section, Tharoor joined Congress in 2009 only because the grand old party was in power at the national level then. He would have joined the BJP had the saffron party been in power then, they argue.

Tharoor has also taken a divergent line from that of his party on many issues such as the entry of women into the Sabarimala temple and the privatisation of the Thiruvananthapuram international airport.

His statement that the BJP could lose 50 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls also has not gone down well with his party leaders who alleged that Tharoor was dancing to the tunes of the saffron party. According to them, his acceptance of the dominance of the BJP indicated his tilt.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan too has claimed that a prominent Congress leader will join the BJP ahead of the 2026 assembly elections, apparently hinting at Tharoor. All eyes are on the future moves of the diplomat-turned-politician.