Shashi Tharoor finally reacts to online petition urging him to be declared Congress’ 2019 PM face

But, could a reluctant Shashi Tharoor have been a challenge to Rahul Gandhi, the favoured PM candidate?

By: News Desk |
March 17, 2017 4:51 pm

Congress parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor doesn’t support the online campaign that seeks to project him as the prime ministerial candidate of the party in the 2019 general elections. The Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram took to Facebook on Friday to put to rest the speculations among his supporters, saying that “I neither support nor endorse” such a campaign.

“The party has a settled leadership, which is not up for debate. When changes occur they do so through an established procedure,” Tharoor wrote in his Facebook post further urging that the petition be “withdrawn.”

An online petition floated on Change.org by a person appearing to be a constituent of Tharoor demanded of the Congress party leadership to make him the PM face of the party in the upcoming general elections. The petitioner, Paul Trivandrum, based his demand on Tharoor’s glowing public life and academic record.

The petition had attracted more than 16,000 signatures by Friday afternoon. The petitioner claimed that they would be presenting it to the Congress chairperson once it had reached the 10,000-signature mark.

Here’s what Tharoor wrote:

(Source: Facebook/Shashi Tharoor)