Benched by Cong nationally, Tharoor plays on the front foot in Kerala

“When was the last time a ‘Savarna Hindu’ held the office of Kerala chief minister?” This question was posed to Nair Service Society (NSS) general-secretary Sukumaran Nair at a closed-door event recently. The answer is the late EK Nayanar, who demitted office in 2001. In the last Kerala Assembly elections in 2021, the NSS supported the Congress — rather than remaining noncommittal — hoping that a Nair (in Ramesh Chennithala) would become chief minister. That was not to be.

After the election, Chennithala was replaced as the Leader of Opposition by VD Satheesan, himself a Nair. But only last week, Sukumaran Nair came out all guns blazing against Satheesan for not being obsequious enough to the NSS. The NSS was not accommodative of Shashi Tharoor either. Back in 2009, when the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram seat was allotted to Tharoor over VS Sivakumar, NSS was not impressed and dubbed Tharoor a “Delhi Nair”. But having set aside their differences by 2013, NSS is finally ready to embrace Tharoor.

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Perhaps nothing can illustrate this change better than the fact that Tharoor has been pencilled in as the guest of honour at the annual Mannam Jayanthi function (birth anniversary of NSS founder Mannath Padmanabhan) at the NSS headquarters in Changanacherry on January 2, 2023. Even before that could sink in, Tharoor set forth on a four-day jam-packed visit to Malabar, covering the districts of Kozhikode, Malappuram, and Kannur. He has a host of events lined up, apart from meetings with prominent community leaders, cultural figures, and civil society members.

Tharoor’s signal to Congress leadership

Having been unceremoniously omitted by the Congress leadership from its list of 40 star campaigners for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, Tharoor has embarked on a pan-Kerala tour, virtually sending a signal to the national leadership in the process. Having put up a valiant fight braving all odds against Mallikarjun Kharge in the Congress presidential election, Tharoor yearns for a national role. When Tharoor’s name did not figure in the interim steering committee (replacing the Congress Working Committee) formed in the wake of Kharge’s election as president, it was put down to the clauses in the party constitution. Of late, however, the leadership has dropped many hints that Tharoor may not figure in the reconstituted top body of the party.

With membership in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) still uncertain, Tharoor has set sights on Kerala, where he has a sizeable following cutting across caste, class, and gender divides. Just as he finally endeared himself to the NSS, Tharoor is simultaneously being courted by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), an all-weather ally integral to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Malabar. For, it realises that Tharoor’s presence as a leadership face would bolster the UDF’s chances at the hustings in 2026. That Tharoor could find himself in the good books of the NSS and the IUML at the same time is no mean feat.

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IUML extending its welcome to Tharoor is also significant in the context of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K Sudhakaran courting controversy with statements on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Jawaharlal Nehru recently. The trouble for the Congress is that it has fallen far behind the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) in organisational strength. Taking the stage before Tharoor’s talk ‘Sangh Parivar and Challenges to Secularism’ at Kozhikode’s KP Kesava Menon Hall, local Congress MP MK Raghavan declared, “In the present Indian context, and more so in the context of Kerala, for the Congress to make a comeback, Tharoor needs to be brought to its leadership.” Raghavan was also the one to charter Tharoor’s whirlwind four-day tour of Malabar.

Several well-wishers of the Congress have shared this opinion since the party’s loss to the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in 2021. While the Congress still has an edge in Lok Sabha elections, the scenario is vastly different in the Assembly polls, especially after the delimitation of constituencies in 2009. The LDF has also managed to bring in new allies to its front — also at the expense of the UDF — including Kerala Congress (M) backed by the powerful Syro-Malabar Church. It may not be a coincidence that Tharoor is also making a trip to Pala, base of the Kerala Congress (M), to attend an event of the KM Chandy Foundation, where he is also expected to meet bishops.

Tharoor could be valuable for party in Kerala

For the Congress to get another shot at power in Kerala, apart from winning back a sizeable chunk of its traditional base, it would also need to appeal to large sections of “apolitical” youth who are fed up with either front and do not see the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as an option. These are precisely the voters that supported the Twenty-Twenty Kizhakkambalam corporate-backed party and its alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). In Tharoor, Congress has a candidate who could take these voters into confidence. Also, Tharoor has no baggage. Even the CPI(M) will find it tough to attack him after courting him in the vague hope of weaning him away.

Worryingly for the Congress, it has too many leadership aspirants for the chief minister’s chair. VD Satheesan and K Sudhakaran apart, Chennithala himself harbours ambitions for the chair that eluded him last time, alongside KC Venugopal and K Muralidharan. The factional loyalties in Kerala have been in a state of flux of late, with the Oommen Chandy faction supporting Tharoor’s bid for the Congress leadership. It remains to be seen if Tharoor can emerge stronger by aligning himself with the Chandy faction, which still commands sizeable strength in the party organisation.

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But trouble is brewing for Tharoor already. He found himself stranded upon landing at the Kozhikode airport when the district Youth Congress backed out of hosting his event, which, nevertheless, happened as scheduled. Kozhikode DCC President Praveen Kumar went on to admit that the Youth Congress was following his instructions. With K Sudhakaran and even VD Satheesan flat out denying they had any role in imposing the embargo, and as it emerged that similar Congress events in Kannur and Malappuram would now be organized by affiliates, it became clear that these instructions had the stamp of approval of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). Tharoor, however, remains unfazed. He has only emerged stronger in the aftermath of the controversy.

Tharoor might still be testing waters, but he has ambitions to play a part in state politics, with the Congress at its weakest in national politics. He dropped enough hints about this in an interview with The New Indian Express recently. And, if he has been cut to size nationally, Tharoor is signalling that he has what it takes to make his presence felt in the rough and tumble of Kerala politics.