When the former under secretary General of UN was air lifted by the congress High command and parachuted to Trivandrum LokSabha constituency in 2009, one of the most talked about thing of those times was his candidature.
Lot of water has gone down the bridge over the last five years,
and Dr. Tharoor stands in front of the Trivandrum voters bruised and battered
as an MP failed in his mission and vision. Banners and hoardings hoisted all
around Trivandrum with no civic sense, mentions his greatest achievements as
mean as providing few computer to schools or few high mast lamps. Those huge
flex boards are very dry in content other than the image of Dr. Tharoor
himself.
The MP who
became a Minister of state for foreign affairs in his debut, became a burden to
the ministry, running from controversy to hullabaloo, which forced the congress
high command to strip his place in the ministry.
May be the
greatest expectations about Dr Shashi was that his experience and exposure will
bring a welcome change to the pathetic political culture in the state. However
Dr. Shashi seems to be in peace with the highly corrupt and ineffective system.
The system remains as corrupt as ever, the living cost has rocketed, petroleum
prices have been left to the whims and fancies of the producers. The
unprofessional introduction of social Security card in the form of Aadhar has
created numerous hardships to the common man and not to forget all those scams
that looted the natural resources of India during the ten years of his
government. All in all the last five years has changed nothing for the common
man rather it pushed him further to the wall. Dr.
Tharoor’s political bickering with the inefficient Trivandrum corporation
authorities has seen only as a ploy to cover up his failures rather than being
constructive with the problems of Trivandrum in issues such as waste
management, Water logging and many other basic necessities of the common man.
The
development of the access road to Trivandrum International Airport seems to be
a long distant dream while the Airport inauguration was a much publicized event
more than three years ago. The Vizhinjam port, High court Bench, Kaliakkavila
highway, Air Kerala, High Speed Rail corridor, Sea Plane project, all stand
testimony to the promises never realized other than Mr. Tharoor’s tall claims
of intervention in his progress reports.
When it looked
like NOTA as the only option for voters of Trivandrum to vent their
frustration, they found solace in AAP and its Candidate Ajit Joy. An
outstanding officer of integrity who left Indian Police Service for a stint in
law, and later with the United Nations office on Drugs and crime in Jakarta
where he headed the office that mainly dealt with anti corruption, law enforcement
and environmental crime. He decided to come home and join hands with AAP in
Delhi election while on an assignment to Nairobi working with the Somalian
anti-piracy programme. First ranker of Trivandrum Law College and complimenting
it with a LLM from Harvard is an achievement that the people of Trivandrum will
reckon with. More over his brush with Arvind Kejriwal in Mussoorie Civil
Service academy may have been the element of fire for his calling to serve the
nation.
The voters of
Trivandrum will be more than happy to vote for a well deserved candidate who
represents an ideology that has arrived to take the centre stage in Indian
political system.
While Dr
Shashi Tharoor has taken his call to serve India after losing out to Mr. Ban Ki
Moon in UN, Mr. Ajit Joy has thrown himself into the wild, resigning his high
profile Job in United Nations to serve India and to stand by his beliefs.
