Poor Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor has once again confirmed his readiness to cooperate in any police investigation on Sunanda Pushkar's death. He is more anxious than anybody else to know the truth.

As an innocent person, he initially believed that Sunanda died a natural death. So he took care to cremate the body the soonest. He could not get reconciled that Sunanda was no more. This made him develop chest pain and get admitted in AIIMS. He made use of this opportunity to advise the doctors that Sunanda was suffering from lupus and this was possibly the cause of her demise. The inefficient doctors could not diagnose the cause of his imaginary chest pain and they discharged him.

Tharoor had immense faith in the Delhi police that they would not find the reason for Sunanda passing away. He is so wet behind the ears that signs of injuries on her body did not make him suspicious. He perhaps thought these were self-inflicted wounds as she was suffering from 'lupus'. Only Tharoor knows that lupus is much more consequential than what doctors suspect.

As a harried husband, it hurt Tharoor immensely when people started suspecting him. He did his best to mislead the AIIMS and the public. But they never appreciated his unimpeachable integrity and faithfulness to Sunanda. That Sunanda was his third wife made him an experienced faithful.

Tharoor in all his innocence was greatly upset as to what ails this society if it unnecessarily suspects that Sunanda's death was not natural just because autopsy and viscera examination spotted poisonous substances in her body. Only Tharoor knows that there are so many toxins in our body and therefore does it mean that all deaths are unnatural? The common man could not understand the intensity of Tharoor's mourning because the common man is probably married only once and so what does he know about the grief surrounding the separation from third wife?

Acutely aware of the chronic pain resulting from lupus (what else?), Tharoor desired to reduce the suffering of Sunanda by aligning with Mehr Tarar and others. Unfortunately, like everybody else, Sunanda also suspected Tharoor. The crude open fight between the couple that occurred in the flight from Thiruvananthapuram a couple of days before Sunanda's murder (sorry, natural death) was considered as yet another proof of the troubled relations between Sunanda and the innocent Tharoor. Only Tharoor knows that it was only a public show of affection. It is a pity that even Manish Tiwari of the Congress who was in the same flight did not understand Tharoor's child-like innocence.

The Delhi police is highly sophisticated in its thinking. It is aware that there was poison in Sunanda's body. But it wants to know where is the proof that a poison caused her death. This is a very scientific reasoning which the police will appreciate only when the needle of suspicion points towards people like Shashi Tharoor.

Republic TV which is under the illusion that it is the duty of media to unearth truth is prolonging the controversy claiming it has fresh evidence in the case. Does it appreciate how worried Tharoor is about all these false accusations? Out of genuine concern for Sunanda's health, Tharoor made her stay in Leela Palace Hotel because his house was being re-painted and Sunanda might be allergic to paint (remember lupus?) . It is a canard to say that she decided to stay there, away from Tharoor. If there is any doubt, one can check up with Sunanda's mobile. But unfortunately, many messages in the mobile have been erased. You may think that someone deliberately deleted these messages. No, Sunanda herself removed these . Why? Because of lupus.

Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor is furious that Arnab Goswami is trying to nail him in the case of unnatural death of his wife, Sunanda Pushkar. From day one, it was evident to everyone who looked at the chronology of events and how political pressure was used to obfuscate the facts that it was a murder, plain and simple.

It is despicable that the police instead of doing their job of investigating played a pliable role. The new tapes put out by Arnab's Republic need to be analysed by the police without any bias if truth is really to be discovered.

Tharoor's conduct in the incident has created a lot of suspicion. Following three tweets from him are only to be expected. He is trying to save his skin. What is the police waiting for? Tharoor claims he has nothing to hide from the police. He has already destroyed any evidence that may implicate him.

"1.Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations&outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalst

2.A so-called journalist comes w/an agenda2disrupt the rest of the media in order to create attention for his channel. Not interested in truth

490 replies834 retweets1,948 likes

3.Pathetic2see the depths2which some will sink2attract TRPs. I have nothing to hide from the police&the courts but nothing to say2such people."

246 replies650 retweets1,653 likes

 L

Oops ! What a blunder !

The Hindu reports,

"The FBI of the U.S. was also roped in to determine the nature of poison and despite the delay, the Bureau was able to pinpoint the name of the poison that was found in her body. But since August 2015, till today, the Delhi Police has been dragging its feet even on elementary steps necessary in criminal investigative procedures such as custodial death of Shashi Tharoor and others,” Mr. Swamy said in the letter dated May 12."

Mr.Swamy, this is too bad. Do you want to eliminate Tharoor?

Added on May 15: The Hindu has since corrected 'custodial death' to 'custodial investigation'.

R.K.Pachauri and Shashi Tharoor

R.K.Pachauri and Shashi Tharoor are adept at cocking a snook at our criminal justice system. Any person of ordinary prudence who is aware of what has happened would definitely conclude that these two highnesses are guilty of grave offences which merit long imprisonment and perhaps even capital punishment especially in the case of the latter. But unfortunately, they are allowed to roam around freely and in the case of Tharoor to keep visiting various places abroad as if they are model citizens.

Apart from their sickening immorality, what troubles an ordinary mind is the abject discrimination practised by the police and even judiciary. Some victims of Pachauri's lasciviousness have complained to the police. Police is only dragging their feet. The Delhi Police Commissioner periodically announces some 'development' in the Sunanda Pushkar gruesome murder case only to be followed by a long period of silence. It appears that the police is only waiting for some report from AIIMS or some other body to declare that they are unable to proceed further.

If Pachauri and Tharoor are ordinary citizens, they would be languishing in jail now. Judiciary which is ever so keen to recognise, suo-moto, cases of contempt of court has not found it necessary to arrest the virile and vicious  progress of  shamelessness and cruelty in these cases.

Uneven treatment

Delhi Police Commissioner seems convinced after two years that Sunanda Pushkar did not die naturally. Any normal person would suspect Shashi Tharoor's hand in the gruesome murder. But the police think that VIPs can do no wrong.

If Tharoor were a common person, he would have been arrested in January 2014 itself before relevant evidence was destroyed and when Sunanda's viscera continued to be a leading clue.

Delhi police acting under political pressure have debased India into a banana republic.

Shashi Tharoor and Ahimsa

Shashi Tharoor never fails to impress. Look at his tweet given below.

So, Sunanda Pushkar assaulted herself. Or, Tharoor allowed someone to assault her.

Shashi Tharoor ‏@ShashiTharoor  Jun 14

. @roopali_piyu @manvar_rawat I have never assaulted anyone in my life, human or animal. Do not pursue your politics through lies, please.

CAT's dubious conclusion

There appears a report in Times of India dt. 3rd June which totally demolishes an earlier finding by Central Administrative Tribunal that there was no pressure from Shashi Tharoor or others on the doctors conducting autopsy.

The report is given below:

"CAT rubbished Gupta's claim and rejected the charge of interference levelled against Tharoor. It said the "email sent by Shashi Tharoor, then Union Minister, to Dr Rajiv Bhasin, on January 26, 2014, and the notice dated June 2, 2014 issued by Dr Adarsh Kumar, member secretary, Medical Board, AIIMS do not reveal anything to show that any pressure was put on the applicant to submit a tailor-made autopsy report in Sunanda Pushkar's case". 


Sources, however, said Dr Adarsh Kumar, who was also a member of the board of doctors which conducted the postmortem (of Sunanda Pushkar), has also written to the health minister supporting Dr Sudhir Gupta. He reportedly claimed that the board was asked to state the manner of death as "natural". Pushkar was found dead in her room at a five-star hotel in Delhi on January 17, 2014. "

With Dr.Adarsh Kumar admitting that there was undue influence being exerted on the autopsy panel to term the death as natural, CAT's conclusion is proved to be contradictory to facts. Would CAT reconsider?

The only conclusion we can draw is that the former minister was so powerful that he could get away with murder even in a literal sense.

Unmitigated hypocrisy

Following is a tweet of Shashi Tharoor:

"Stimulating discussion w/ @soniafaleiro & @OLIVERBALCH of India mainly through the prism of violence against women "

Imagine Tharoor discussing violence against women! There never has been a more sanctimonious humbug.

Shashi Tharoor's fulmination

As the following tweets reveal, Shashi Tharoor is convinced that the TimesNow reporter was drunk. How is he so sure? Is it that if the sybarite is questioned on strong suspicion, the questioner should be dismissed as intoxicated? Tharoor, thanks for admitting that you are human. We thought you are divine! It is not a human quality to brush aside the death of one's spouse in mysterious circumstances as normal, to cremate the body (to destroy evidence?) with inexplicable celerity, to coach the witnesses to lie, to go about dating ladies from foreign countries including those from hostile nations even when functioning as a minister thus jeopardising India's security, to have an ugly spat with one's spouse in a flight and hack into spouse's mobile / twitter handle and misinform the public that everything in the relationship is normal etc. Tharoor also had the super-human ability to influence his in-laws to assert that nothing was amiss about Sunanda Pushkar's cruel murder!

Has Tharoor filed an FIR against the so-called vandals who smashed his office gate and broke windows? Or, has he stage-managed all these to gain sympathy? Has the facile actor, a duplicitous philanderer,  overplayed his cards?

Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor · 12h12 hours ago

. @ShekharGupta Shekhar,11pm,guy was drunk&screaming "why r u running away? Why evading questions?" I'm human.Something snapped. Never again

View conversation

94 retweets138 favorites

Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor · 13h13 hours ago

Obstreporous&intoxicated @TimesNow correspondent physically tried to obstruct from me speaking to 7-11yr old children. Are there no limits?

269 retweets155 favorites

Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor · 14h14 hours ago

Tvm @TimesNow correspondent instigates vandals claiming to be journalists to smash my office gate, break windows. Journalism or goondaism?

296 retweets157 favorites

"Self-appointed liars and scum"

Shashi Tharoor claims that he will speak to the police and not to "self-appointed liars and scum". He was visibly furious when he lashed out at a TimesNow reporter. He has since clarified that his reference was only to a 'scummy channel' and not the entire media. Yes, if someone asks a relevant question, he is a liar and a scum.

Incidentally, no one appoints oneself in a negative way, as a liar or scum. It is very rare for Tharoor to make an obvious mistake as this. One may call Tharoor a self-appointed Mr.Innocent and not a self-appointed Mr.Guilty. Knowing the dilatoriness associated with our criminal justice system and confident that his connections will help to hide his unforgivable guilt, Tharoor generally maintains his cool. He claims that he cracked after a long-distance flight.

All known circumstances point towards Tharoor's involvement in Sunanda Pushkar's murder. Delhi police should have demanded his custodial interrogation a long time ago. If the nefarious Casanova goes scot-free despite the heinousness of his crime, it will be one more blot on the Delhi police.

Shashi Tharoor on Narendra Modi

It is funny that a person like Shashi Tharoor for whom nothing is unbecoming tweets like this. Human beings should have some conscience.

Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor   I do wish @PMOIndia would not "dis" our country abroad. It is most unbecoming, to put it very mildly.

Narendra Modi's style: Debilitating control or Enabling oversight?

Shashi Tharoor has told a private gathering at the World Bank that Modi's operating style may stymie India's development. The report is as follows:

"The office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi exercises such an extent of control over policy matters that it could be impeding implementation, suggested  Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, who is on a brief visit to the U.S.

Speaking at a private event at the World Bank focused on his new book “India Shastra” Mr. Tharoor, who is also the Chair of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, said, “Mr. Modi has said a lot of the right things. The challenge is going to be in doing the right thing, which so far, in ten months, we haven’t seen him doing that.”"

Perhaps Tharoor is right. There is an ocean of difference between Modi and his predecessor. Manmohan Singh escaped legal responsibilty for all ministerial scams under his 'able' leadership because he never intervened in any decisions. He was only a 'pass- through prime minister'. (In Finance, pass- through entities do not attract taxes. Similarly, Singh did not attract any culpability for multiple shenanigans.) 

It is sad that Tharoor never commented on Singh's style and thereby lost an opportunity to save the country from a decadent decade. It is ,however, only too naive to expect him to criticise a prime minister who turned a blind eye to his misdeeds in IPL and what all followed over a period of time including the poisoning of his wife.

The Modi government has asked the state Governors to remain in the states atleast for 80% of the time and to seek President's approval for travel outside. It is strange that there was no such guideline so far. It is time that gubernatorial posts ceased to be mere sinecures.

Murder, most foul and investigation, most tardy

What was as clear as sunlight to most Indians on 17th January, 2014 is now 'suspected' by the Delhi police. It has taken almost a year of police inaction to discover that Sunanda Pushkar was murdered. Subramanian Swamy was among the first to call it a 'gruesome murder' which it really was.

Despite tell-tale pieces of evidence and damning accounts of Tharoor's domestic help, the former minister continues to feign incredible innocence. It is obvious that police was prevented from doing its job in time by the then government at the centre.

A dead victim rarely gets justice. It continues to be unlikely that the murderers and their accomplices are brought to book. The MP's shameful complicity in the murder is an insult to the parliament and to voters in Thiruvananthapuram.

Today's editorial in The Hindu is an understated reference to Shashi Tharoor's guilt:


http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-unnatural-death-unnatural-probe/article6768464.ece

Who is saying what?

It is amazing that Shashi Tharoor could say this:

"Earlier during his speech at the function at the DG Vaishnav College, he said students awaited hard roads as challenges ahead in their lives.

"But you should believe in yourself, you should believe in the truth. I have been on those hard roads and that was the only way I was able to cope as well," he said."

Is this hallucination or chicanery?

Involving unclean minds in 'Clean India' campaign

Shashi Tharoor is one of the nine persons chosen by Narendra Modi to initiate the Swachh Bharat campaign. It is unfortunate that a misogynist Casanova who divorced twice and most likely murdered a third wife is enlisted for this national purpose.

Ever since Modi became the prime minister, the shameless Tharoor has been getting closer to him possibly to stave off criminal proceedings relating to Sunanda's death. Tharoor should not be allowed to continue mocking at justice to his departed spouse.

Fiction

                                 Shashi Tharoor releases the new book of Rajat Gupta

Rajat Gupta recently started serving his prison sentence. Before entering the low-security prison, he assured his admirers that when the two-year term is over he would author a book detailing his account of the insider transactions probed by the SEC and his innocence in the matter.

You can expect an ex-McKinseyite to deliver on his promise in time. But, wow! He had already completed his book. The book meaningfully titled, “White man’s lackey: The Rise of Preet Bharara and the Fall of American judicial system”, was released in Thiruvananthapuram by Shashi Tharoor even as the author was getting into prison situated very near where Raj Rajaratnam was lodged.

While releasing the book, the former minister empathised with Rajat Gupta saying, “We are birds of the same feather. So we understand each other well. I know how it feels when the entire world blames you for a crime and only you know that you are innocent.”

What if the entire world knows that you are guilty of a crime and only you claim that you are innocent?

Mani Shankar Aiyar on Shashi Tharoor

Mani Shankar Aiyar has ridiculed Shashi Tharoor as a chameleon on the latter's late discovery of Narendra Modi's 'inclusivism'. Aiyar has also noted that "notwithstanding simmering public doubts over the tragic death of his warm, gregarious wife Sunanda, he was selected again for Thiruvananthapuram." In other words, Tharoor is treated as a renegade.

Tharoor and Aiyar are supposedly the two best brains in the Congress party. Tharoor's rationalisation that by praising Modi's 'changed behaviour' (?) he is only setting a higher benchmark against which the public has to judge the prime minister has not cut much ice with the party. Reasons for his pro-Modi comments are clear as daylight. He desperately needs government's intervention to torpedo the police investigation into his role in the gruesome death of his third wife.

Aiyar is desperate to get into good books of Sonia Gandhi. Tharoor has given him an opportunity to exploit. Perversely intelligent people are a greater liability to a political party than honest fools.

Shashi Tharoor's current views on Narendra Modi

Shashi Tharoor has written the following essay in TheWorldPost :

"When Narendra Modi swept to a dramatic victory in India's general elections, becoming the first prime minister in three decades to command an absolute majorityin the lower house of India's fractious Parliament, many in India worried about what his victory would portend. To political opponents and members of India's liberal intelligentsia, Modi was a divisive, sectarian, authoritarian figure who had presided over the massacre of some 1200 innocents, mainly Muslim, as chief minister of the state of Gujarat in 2002. The thought of such a figure leading a diverse and multi-religious polity that had long been built on the "Nehruvian consensus" developed by the Congress Party, was anathema to many.

In the event, Modi overcame this negative perception, re-branding himself as an apostle of development and pointing to his successful record in Gujarat, a state of high growth rates that under his leadership has been a magnet for investors. His brilliantly-organized, lavishly-funded election campaign saw "Hindutva", the ideology of Hindu chauvinism with which he and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have long been identified, relegated to the back burner, while Modi promised voters he would remake India in the model of prosperous Gujarat. The electorate rewarded the BJP - which had never previously won more than 186 seats in India's 543-member Lower House - with 282 seats, as the National Democratic Alliance led by the BJP claimed 333. The ruling Congress Party, of which I am a member, was relegated to its worst showing in history, winning a mere 44 seats.

To almost everyone's surprise, however, Modi and the BJP have eschewed the hubris and triumphalism they might have been assumed to have earned with their sweeping victory. In the couple of weeks since his election, Modi has been conciliatory andinclusive in both his pronouncements and his actions. I was a beneficiary of this unexpected generosity on the very day of his victory, when I received a startling tweetof congratulations from him on my own victory in my constituency. "Let us work together to move India forward," he declared in his message to me.

This tweet to a prominent adversary, with whom he had crossed swords in the past, was one of many signals to the nation that he was putting old enmities behind him. "I will be prime minister of all Indians, including those who did not vote for me," he announced in one of his first speeches. Cynics might point out that this was only prudent, since his party won its resounding majority with just 31 percent of the national vote, benefitting from the Westminster-style "first-past-the-post" system in constituencies with multiple contesting parties. But coming as it did from a man with a reputation of brooking no dissent and riding roughshod over opposition during his twelve years at the helm in Gujarat, it was a welcome surprise.

In a series of speeches, Prime Minister Modi has gone out of his way to avoid confrontational language, to omit issues and imagery that India's religious minorities would find offensive, and to extend a hand of friendship to his critics. After having attacked the large number of government projects and schemes named for members of the Congress Party's Nehru-Gandhi dynasty during the election, he stopped his ministers from renaming these programmes, saying it was more important to get them to work more effectively. His early Cabinet appointments rewarded the party's brighter and younger professionals, omitting many of the Hindu nationalist veterans and rabid ideologues who epitomised many Indians' anxieties about the BJP.

In a striking departure from precedent, Modi also quelled concerns in India's neighbourhood about his rise by inviting the heads of government of India's seven South Asian neighbours, as well as that of Mauritius (the Indian Ocean republic whose population is 63 percent Indian), to his swearing-in. India's prime ministers have never enjoyed lavish inaugurations like American presidents, traditionally assuming office after sparsely-attended and low-key oath-takings behind closed doors. Modi converted this routine into a grand, opulent 4,000-guest ceremony on the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace, and invited his foreign guests to attend the televised coronation.

The gesture instantly disarmed many across the borders who had been alarmed by his combative rhetoric during the campaign, in which he had promised robust action on the borders, assailed Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism and warned some 30 million Bangladeshi illegal immigrants in India that they should be prepared to pack their backs on the day of his victory. His cordial welcome to, and subsequent bilateral meetings with, the leaders of these and other neighbouring countries reassured them that the Modi government would not feel obliged to live up to the belligerence of the Modi campaign.

So does this all add up to a Modi 2.0, a very different figure in government from the ogre some of us had feared and demonised for years? It is still too early to tell, but the initial signs are encouraging. Prime Minister Modi would hardly be the first opposition leader to temper his views and conduct once in office, but there seems to be something more fundamental involved here. An ambitious man, Modi appears to realize that if he wants to make a success of his government, he will have to lead the nation from the center and not from the extreme right where he had built his base in the BJP.

His overwhelming majority, won on the back of a highly personalized campaign which led many to vote for Modi rather than for the BJP, has also liberated him from the party's and his own past positions. Just as he remade himself from a hate-figure into an avatar of modernity and progress, he is seeking to remake the BJP from a vehicle of Hindu chauvinism to a natural party of governance. This will mean a change in both language and tone, as he has demonstrated from day one.

For an opposition member of Parliament like myself, it would be churlish not to acknowledge Modi 2.0's inclusive outreach and to welcome his more conciliatory statements and actions. The moment he says or does something divisive or sectarian in the Modi 1.0 mould, however, we will resist him robustly. India's people, and its pluralist democracy, deserve no less."

The former minister has taken a calculated risk in stating the obvious about Modi. He has calculated that the Congress in its present perilous state cannot afford to throw him out of the party. Even if it does, he would emerge as a courageous person willing to 'sacrifice' for Modi. By praising Modi, he aims to preempt lawful action against him for his widely suspected criminal misdemeanours. Would Modi play ball? Who does not succumb to flattery? Tharoor is a sharp shooter.

Sunanda Pushkar

What happened to MH 370 continues to be a mystery because there are as yet no reliable clues. In contrast, what happened to Sunanda Pushkar is allowed to remain a mystery despite the presence of tangible, actionable clues. When a murder is suspected, the police has to investigate. When the police does not have a free hand, in all fairness and to protect justice, the judiciary has to intervene suo moto.

Sanjaya Baru has explained in his book 'The Accidental Prime Minister' how the prime minister is totally led by Sonia Gandhi. Therefore he is powerless to remove Shashi Tharoor from his ministry even if he suspects the worst.

A law-abiding country has to ensure that in cases where the victim is dead and the victim's close relatives are silenced because the suspect is powerful, justice is not forsaken by the indifference of judiciary.

The following report appeared recently in Times of India. It is not surprising that many newspapers did not take the risk of offending the powerful by giving justified coverage.

"THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Writer Madhu Kishwar who was in Thiruvananthapuram to launch her book 'Modi Media and Muslims' said she wasn't surprised that the Congress had offered a ticket to Shahsi Tharoor given that the party was able to do a good job in hushing up the investigation pertaining to the death of his wife Sunanda Pushkar. 

Kishwar said that she wouldn't call Sunanda Pushkar a friend, but Tharoor's wife was very good friends with Kishwar's good friends and she often confided in them. "I knew Sunanda Pushkar was unhappy in her marriage and there is little doubt in my mind that she was murdered. Everyone who knows Tharoor, knows that he is a womanizer. Shashi Tharoor was abusing her, she confided in my friend. Their marriage was an absolute mess. They were fighting in public all the time," said the author-activist at the launch of her book at Rangavilasom Palace, Thiruvananthapuram. 

Kishwar said she doesn't like to waste mind-space for gossip, "but I remembered that Sunanda complained about how her husband was living off her. Sunanda said that her husband was making her pay for everything. She said, "When I married this UN diplomat I thought that he would have enough money to at least take care of himself but he even made me pay for his wedding Sherwani. Which man does that?" Sunanda Pushkar has enough friends in the media, why isn't anyone standing up for her. The media has buried her story with the help of Congress. The snoopgate against Modi on the other hand is still an election issue," Kishwar said. "