Tharoor Says He Was Not Invited To Bihar Campaign, Calls For Review Of Congress Defeat

Congress leader MM Hassan accused Tharoor of using the same “family politics” arguments employed by the BJP to target Rahul Gandhi.

Transcript

00:00Look, it's a question of leading at the moment. Yes, they're leading by a rather large margin,

00:07but let's wait for the Election Commission to discuss and disclose the results.

00:11I'm sure that the party has a responsibility to study in detail the causes. Remember,

00:18we were not the senior partner in the alliance, and that RJD also has to look carefully at its

00:25own performance. But I will say that on a matter like this, it's very important that we look at

00:32the totality of our performance. You know, elections are about a number of factors.

00:38There is, of course, the popular mood. There is a question of organizational strengths and weaknesses.

00:44There is a question of the messaging. A lot of issues which will have to be looked at and to see

00:49what went right, what went wrong. But let's wait for the final results before we make a call.

00:54The women voters were certainly given some incentives just before the Code of Conduct.

01:00Whether we like it or not, unfortunately, that is legal under our laws. It's from the day of the

01:04announcement of the elections that you can no longer do that. I'm afraid this is not the first

01:10time that we have seen state governments doing such things of giving benefits to certain segments

01:17of society. So this is not, unfortunately, unusual. I can't say it's a healthy practice. I don't think

01:25it's a healthy practice. But we saw something quite similar in Maharashtra as well, and we've seen it in

01:29other states in the past. There is a tendency to give some of these rewards just before an election.

01:36And we have to look at whether such things are reasonable. At the same time, we can't stop

01:42governments from doing their job until the election is the mode of call, the mode of code of conduct

01:47comes into force. So it's not easy to find a simple solution. But anyway, let's let's analyze the results

01:53in detail. I think that ultimately those who are directly involved in the campaign, I unfortunately

01:59wasn't there and I wasn't invited to to campaign in Bihar. So I can't tell you much myself from personal

02:05experience. All I can say is those who are involved will certainly study it, I'm sure, in greater depth.