Shashi Tharoor, one of the Congress party’s more senior MPs, agrees that his party was “stunned into negligence” by the defeat in the May national elections and as a result delayed state-level changes in Haryana which, had they happened six months earlier, could have won the state for Congress in the recent elections.

In an interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Tharoor also forcefully stands by his belief that a free and fair election is the best way of choosing the new Congress president but accepts that his is a lonely voice and possibly a minority of one.

Tharoor, who was a minister of state for external affairs, and then HRD, in the Manmohan Singh government, says senior leaders of the Congress party are against choosing the new president through an election because they believe it will create divisiveness and factionalism in the party and could also lead to a lopsided result. He said that he has discussed this with both Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi but refused to reveal their thinking.

Speaking about the new think tank set up by Sonia Gandhi to determine Congress’s position on issues of critical importance, Tharoor said he did not know why he was not chosen as a member of this think tank. As he put it, he cannot demand to be made a member. And if the party believes it doesn’t need him it has a right to come to that conclusion. Though repeatedly asked, he would not say whether he was disappointed by his exclusion. He said: “I’m available to the party whenever they need me and in whatever capacity.”

In his 45-minute interview, Tharoor said that the Congress’s performance in Maharashtra and Haryana is a sign that the party is reviving but this is only the very beginning of what is likely to be a lengthy process. He also believes that the recent state elections clearly suggest that economic issues such as unemployment and farmer distress are becoming more important than political issues such as national security and undocumented immigration.

#ShashiTharoor #KaranThapar

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