KOZHIKODE: “Shashi Tharoor asked me whether I will extend support if he decided to contest for the post of AICC president if no one from the Nehru family is entering the fray. I agreed, kept my promise and supported a staunch secular person who believes in democracy,” MP M K Raghavan wrote on Facebook on October 1. From that day till the counting of the votes was over, Raghavan stood firm behind Tharoor while those offered him support from Kerala wavered.
Why did he support Tharoor risking even his political career? Raghavan has the answer.“I felt proud in the possibility of Tharoor becoming the AICC president the first one from Kerala after Sir C Sankaran Nair who was elected to the post at the Amaravathi AICC conference in 1897,” wrote Raghavan.
He expressed the hope that the great communicator who won the confidence of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan could be an asset for the party and the opposition in the changed circumstances in the country.
“It was the realisation that Tharoor will be a strong secretary general that prompted countries like the US to scuttle his chances of getting elected to the post.
We should capitalise on the realisation that America had,” Raghavan felt. The Congress leader from Kannur, who got elected to the Lok Sabha thrice defeating CPM men from Kozhikode constituency, strongly believed that Tharoor had sacrificed many personal benefits for the Congress.
Raghavan believes the voice that reverberated in Oxford University could be an apt adversary for Narendra Modi in Parliament and the national media that find pleasure in taunting Congress leaders would become silent before Tharoor’s mastery of words. Raghavan did not think twice to defend his choice when state Congress president K Sudhakaran fired the innuendo that Tharoor was only a trainee in Congress politic. He retorted that Tharoor was actually a trainer and not a trainee.
Raghavan was fully aware of the consequences of antagonising the high command by rallying behind Tharoor. After the counting was over and Kharge was declared winner, Raghavan came out with a post in Facebook congratulating the new president and calling for working unitedly under him.