Sunanda Pushkar case: Political Implications for Congress

By Deepak Parvatiyar

January 8, 2015

Much to the discomfort of the Congress, Sunanda Puskhar – the deceased wife of high profile Congress Member of Parliament and former minister Shashi Tharoor – has risen from the ashes. On January 7 this year, the Delhi Police called Pushkar’s death as murder and filed a First Information Report against unknown persons in this connection. Pushkar had died under mysterious condition in a Delhi five star hotel exactly a year ago, when Tharoor was a minister. What gave an ominous twist to her death was just a day before her death on January 17, last year, she had accused in an angry Twitter exchange, a Pakistani journalist of having an affair with her husband Tharoor.

The Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has revealed that Pushkar’s death was caused by “poison” and not by an “overdose of Alprax,” as was mentioned in the preliminary report.

Political Outcomes of Fresh Disclosures in the Sunanda Case

Tharoor has referred to a letter that he wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner in November last year alleging that the Delhi Police was “assaulting” and “intimidating” his domestic help into “confessing” that they both killed Pushkar.

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As a special police team is now formed to investigate anew Pushkar’s murder, it does have the potential to damage an already beleaguered Congress party which is trying to rejuvenate itself before the ensuing Delhi Assembly elections. While BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy has missed no time to target Tharoor, alleging the latter’s “involvement in the matter”, this has evoked sharp reaction from the Congress. Its leader Renuka Chowdhury even suggested the Delhi police to “ask Subramanian Swamy as to how did he get the information. How does this become a party issue? It is a personal issue.”

Shashi Tharoor: An influential but Controversial Congress Politician

It would be a folly to consider Shashi Tharoor a political lightweight just because of the time he spent in politics. For someone as influential to have contested the United Nations’ Secretary General’s position and come a close second in 2007, his reach and influence transcends geographical boundaries.

Though young in politics, till 2013 he was India’s most-followed politician on Twitter and none but present Prime Minister Narendra Modi could eventually surpass him. However, once entering the Indian political arena in 2009, he has seemingly developed a knack of inviting controversies. Consider the following:

a) In September 2009, Tharoor as a minister had annoyed his party men with a tweet that he would travel ‘cattle class’ with ‘holy cows’ following the then government’s austerity measures and on a day when the Congress president Sonia Gandhi had herself flown economy class to Mumbai.

b) Within a year in his first stint as Member of Parliament, he earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first minister in the United Progressive Alliance-II government to face corruption charges. He then had to resign as a minister of state for external affairs in April 2010, following allegations that he misused his position to get shares in the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket franchise and got his wife Sunanda Pushkar a sweat equity in the Kochi-IPL team.

c) In October last year, he was removed as Congress spokesperson following the recommendation of the All India Congress Committee’s Disciplinary Committee after he had praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and accepted Modi’s invitation to be a brand ambassador of “Swachh Bharat” mission of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government.

Despite such controversies, he could still win the election for his party. Against all odds, he did win from his home constituency Thiruvananthapuram in the last summer’s General Elections.

Shashi Tharoor: Close Proximity with Congress High Command

Shashi Tharoor has been the only speaker of the Congress Party, other than the party President Sonia Gandhi and the then PM Manmohan Singh, and the then Leader of the House (now President) Pranab Mukherjee, to be invited to address the Lok Sabha on the 60th Anniversary of the Indian Parliament!

Besides, his reported proximity to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, too makes him a formidable politician. Just consider that despite protest from Kerala state unit of the Congress, he was re-inducted to the Union Ministry as a minister of state for Human Resources Development in 2012 – just over two years after he was dropped unceremoniously from the ministry over the IPL franchise fiasco. Reportedly, the decision to re-induct him was the choice of Rahul  and Manmohan Singh since he was not a nominee of the Congress in his home state, Kerala then!
Even in the 15th Lok Sabha, where the Congress failed to secure the Leader of Opposition post, Tharoor got the Chairmanship of the Parliament’s Standing Committee on External Affairs! (Consider that the Congress could bag chairmanship of only five such Standing Committees!)

How will Sunanda Case further Harm the Congress ?

Given the political relevance of Tharoor in the Congress’s scheme of things, the BJP as well as the Left now target him and seek his resignation from Parliament for obvious reasons. More so for the Left for whom Tharoor’s home state Kerala remains a fertile pasture.
To what extent can the case impact the Congress’ prospects in ensuing elections? It will further damage the Congress, which is already pushed to the wall in Delhi even before the new twist to Pushkar’s case unfolded.

A larger question though is the political fate of Tharoor? Can he survive the ghost of Pushkar again? After all, he did survive it initially by returning to the Lok Sabha last summer!