I have long admired the works of Shashi Tharoor. As I mentioned before on Brick and Rope, I was happy to see someone of his calibre step into the political system in India and stand for election for a Lok Sabha seat. Shashi Tharoor won the seat for Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, with a margin of over 100,000 votes, the largest victory margin there in the last 30 years I am told.
Two interesting follow-up stories on this over yesterday.
Right after the election was over, Indian Express informs us, Tharoor was tearing off his own posters from Thiruvananthapuram walls, to clean up the city. Cool, if rather pointless.
In another reminder of the changing face of Indian politics, Tharoor was Twittering away from his Blackberry all day yesterday, keeping his fans and followers upto date. As this article in the Economic Times writes, he first tweeted from his Blackberry during the counting process when his lead hit 30,000. Then again at 59,000 and then finally with the ending tally. The last Tweet I saw said "On a victory tour of my constituency - amazing scenes of exhilaration - already hoarse from thank-you speeches!"
On which note I have to ask - how absurdly narcissistic is Twitter?
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but he joined the "kaurav" party ! :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting thought ... that had not occurred to me. Indira vs no Indira I would say is the key driver of that change of heart.
ReplyDeletehmm...u wld like to believe that ...well all of us are fallible to self interest, even the great indian novelist !
ReplyDeleteTotally on point. This is a man who wrote a whole (admiring) book on Nehru though ... and was nominated for UN GS by a Congress PM. His self interest just seems to be aligned with his ublished feelings on the matter.
ReplyDeletei didnt know abt the Nehru book but anyway having someone of his calibre in the gov is better than several other options we have..
ReplyDelete