Now, it is a question of when, rather than if, Shashi Tharoor will be sacked as the minister of state for external affairs.
I think it will be a big mistake to sack Tharoor.
Competency wise, I think he is the man, in parliament today, best suited for the ministry of external affairs. He is intelligent, articulate and has had a global exposure. He may not be streetsmart but he connects with the people and can be a good representative of India to the external world.
I think Tharoor has not done anything wrong, especially with respect to the standards expected from an Indian politician.
Yes, he has pulled his weight around. Yes, Sunanda Pushkar might not have got the job if she had not been connected to Tharoor.
But could Tharoor have in any way manipulated the bidding process? Could he have given the team the magic number to win the bid?
I don’t think so.
One mistake he did was call up Modi when he started questioning the Kochi franchise about the ownership structure. But his argument, in his interview with Barkha Dutt, that in his responsibility as an MP from Kerala, he had a right to call up and ask Lalit Modi why he was delaying the confirmation of the Kochi team, is convincing enough.
A panelist on Barkha Dutt’s talk show on NDTV commented that for a politician to be successful in India, he has to act dumber than he actually is.
I think that it is very true. Level any accusation against Laloo and he will joke about it and laugh it off. Tharoor’s main mistake is that he appears to be very intelligent and he has made a lot of enemies for his larger than thou attitude. And this controversy has come at a time when parliament is in session. So congress will be forced to sack him to prevent the opposition from hounding the Prime Minister.
The good thing about the controversy is that it has highlighted the lack of transparency in the ownership structure of IPL franchises. The media should now probe the stakes of other politicians like Sharad Pawar, Arun Jaitley and Narendra Modi. More importantly does the underworld and other criminal syndicates have anything to do with any of the teams? The people of India have a right to know.
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