New Delhi : Senior Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor said on Thursday he did not campaign for the Nilambur bypoll in Kerala because the party leadership never invited him to do so. I wasn’t invited by the party. But that’s alright, Tharoor told reporters, responding to a question about his absence from the campaign trail in Nilambur. Voting for the crucial byelection is underway there today.
First of all, I was gone for much of the time on this official diplomatic mission. When I came back there was no insistence, no missed call from the leadership saying I should come, he said with an enigmatic smile. So he used the time to honour prior commitments, including chairing a committee meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs in Delhi.
Tharoor rejected suggestions that his absence signalled a rift with the party leadership or cadre. He stated that Congress workers, including those from his Thiruvananthapuram constituency, had been toiling hard on the campaign.
My close relations with party workers have seen me through four elections in my own constituencies, he added. Congress party workers have been by my side everywhere. Tharoor, who has been with the Congress for 16 years and won four consecutive elections from Thiruvananthapuram, said there are occasional differences with the party brass.
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