Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, on Friday, responded to an online petition that demands he be nominated as UPA's Prime Ministerial candidate for 2019. The petition filed on Change.org has gone viral and already garnered over 16,000 votes. In his Facebook post, Tharoor said he was 'surprised and touched' and requested the petitioner to withdraw the plea.
Tharoor said that his party has a 'settled leadership' and that changes will occur only through established procedures. The petition was created by a person named Paul from Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala, which is also MP Tharoor's constituency. The petition addressed to the president of the Indian National Congress, All India Congress Committee and UPA, stated that success of a democratic country like India requires a 'strong public interest based opposition led by a visionary leader capable of Prime Ministership'. The petition added that Tharoor is a well qualified man who can connect with the people of India and with world leaders.
Tharoor's Facebook post which has been shared over 400 times by Saturday morning has garnered hundreds of comments, most of them supporting the petition and also asking the Congress to buck up and create a strong opposition. The comments also hit out at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi. Recently, Gandhi's leadership has been questioned after the party's disastrous outing at the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. Although the Congress had teamed up with the Samajwadi Party, the alliance took a major beating at the hands of the BJP and Modi wave that swept the state.
Tharoor was recently in the news for his speeches, articles and television appearances in foreign media where he spoke of 'historical amnesia' of the British and also questioned why the British do not teach their colonial history in schools. These speeches and articles have been widely shared on social media.
