Shashi Tharoor to contest from Thiruvananthapuram

Shashi Tharoor is contesting the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital of Kerala and it has been officially announced by the Congress

I was personally very happy hearing the news and seeing him in the traditional Kerala attire on TV.
I am even more happy that he is entering India politics.
I am sure he will do a very good job and if not immediately will bring change to Kerala and to a certain extend in the game of Indian Politics.

I wish more educated and truly able people like Shashi Tharoor enters Indian Politics.
God bless him and I wish him all the very success

If you do not know who is Sashi Tharoor, here is a quick look (But a Google search will bring up a lot more information)
His official website is www.shahsitharoor.com

An Extract from his website
Born in London in 1956, Dr. Tharoor was educated in India and the United States, completing a Ph. D. in 1978 at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he received the Robert B. Stewart Prize for Best Student. At Fletcher, Shashi Tharoor helped found and was the first Editor of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs, a journal now in its 31st year. A compelling and effective speaker, he is fluent in English and French.

In January 1998, Dr. Tharoor was named a "Global Leader of Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He is the recipient of several awards, including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was named to India’s highest honour for Overseas Indians, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, in 2004. He serves on the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the board of trustees of the Aspen Institute India, and the Advisory Boards of the World Policy Journal, the Virtue Foundation and the human rights organization Breakthrough. He is also a Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities.


An extract from the report that appeared in Calcutta Telegraph, that compared late V K Krishna Menon to him
"It would have been risky to imitate his illustrious predecessor, the late V.K. Krishna Menon, who won from Thiruvananthapuram in 1971. Menon’s Malayalam was poor, so he spoke less of it and made up with witticisms in English. But his reputation as an orator, especially his 13-hour marathon speech in the UN, was too fresh in the minds of voters for them to bother about his Malayalam.

Tharoor starts off with the image of an outsider — his familiarity with the land of his parents is through brief vacations spent in Palakkad — though he has tried hard to be seen and heard after losing the election for UN secretary-general election and buying a house in the city." 

It seems Sashi Tharoor on Saturday surprised the media crowd at the meeting named "anghathattu" organised by Kerala Kaumudi at Thiruvananthapuram by speaking in good Malayalam.

He rubbished the allegation that he cannot speak in good malayalam. He said he was conversant enough to communicate with the people of Kerala (to understand their problems).

He also reminded that as Member of Parliament to raise the problems of the constituency and find solutions, Hindi and English were more useful.

I have been counting on the number of languages Sashi Tharoor is fluent in speaking
I know TV shows that he can speak Hindi, English, French and Malayalam very fluently.

Thiruvananthapuram: Congress candidate from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala for Lok Sabha elections, Shashi Tharoor, is neither a resident of the constituency nor does he speak Malayalam.

The former under-secretary-general of the United Nations, Tharoor, has now traded off the air-conditioned comfort of the UN office in New York for the heat, dust and sweat of Thiruvananthapuram. but with less than two weeks left for polling in the constituency, Tharoor will need more than just luck and his personal charisma to secure a victory.

Both Tharoor and his constituency are new to each other and added to that is the language barrier.
His Malayalam is not very fluent, but he takes that as a challenge than a handicap.
Tharooor assures rural voters that their voices would be heard in Delhi both in English and Hindi. He is also spending more time reaching out to them.

As reported at CNN IBN. Read full stiry at  http://ibnlive.in.com/news/tharoor-campaign-hampered-by-language-barrier/89617-37.html

The global citizen-turned-politician Shashi Tharoor is all set to have his first experience in Parliament. He is one figure who will be eagerly tracked by the whole country and abroad and every Malayalee can be proud of him, not just because he is one among them, but because he will be taking part in all the proceedings clad in a typical white Kerala ‘mundu’ and ‘jubba’.

“I think more or less this will be my dress in Parliament,” said Shashi Tharoor, while sharing some lighter moments with the press here on Monday. He also wears a Congress-flag coloured shawl, the reason being the need for some ‘colour’ in his attire. “When I wear just white and more white I feel I need to have some colour on my dress,” he said.