While Kerala was battling with floods, Shashi Tharoor was touring the world

The Kerala floods has been a devastating event in the history of the state, the natural disaster of this magnitude is enough to shake the foundations of any society. The floods have taken a heavy toll on many towns, killing a number of residents while leaving others stranded and some missing. The relief work which has followed the devastating floods have demonstrated the empathy Indians feel for their compatriots irrespective of the region or state they belong to, as it is clearly evident from donations and aid coming from ordinary citizens of various states.  Ordinary citizens have started the nationwide relief effort by collecting food, clothes, money and medicines wherein each person is contributing to his or her capacity. Indian Army and Navy have been working tirelessly around the clock to rescue and provide relief to the people. Politicians right from Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan to PM Modi have shown urgency in initiating relief work and helping the people in whatever capacity they can. In this situation the attitude of Kerala MP and senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor towards his home state has been shocking to say the least.

Shashi Tharoor the Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala has won from the state twice in a row since 2009. Even when Tharoor was first propped up in 2009 as the Congress candidate he had faced criticism for being an ‘elite outsider’ who had a surprisingly high social media presence. Twitter and other social media platforms which he uses regularly have landed him into many controversies in the past, from ‘cattle class” to the most recent one in which he was found to be travelling around the world while people from his home state were battling with floods.

His Twitter timeline in itself is proof that Shashi Tharoor was hardly in Kerala when rescue and relief missions had begun in full swing and the whole nation was watching fixatedly at every development in the time of Kerala’s floods. The problems in Kerala had reached worrisome proportions a lot earlier than the national mainstream media reported Home Minister Rajnath Singh had visited the state on the 12^th of August to take stock of the situation. This was preceded by the state government filing a report to the central government concerning the floods towards the end of July. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju had visited the state on July 21, which was followed by the visit of a committee on August 7^th to August 12^th. Shashi Tharoor, an MP from the state meanwhile was nowhere to be found in the state. His Twitter timeline reveals that he was catching a flight on that day from Darjeeling. Is it not insensitive on the part of someone who is an MP from the state, to be missing from the scene when the people who had voted for him were facing problems of epic proportions?

Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor had one response in common when Kerala was being devastated by floods. They both fled the country when they got the chance. Shashi Tharoor according to his own tweets was in Geneva to meet with the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO) officials for asking for help.

What is surprising though is the fact that he had earlier used his own Twitter handle to convey that there was very little he could do in his own capacity and that the central government was the only one which could approach the UN or other foreign bodies to seek help for Kerala. These admissions of his own make the claims surrounding visit questionable if one chooses not to reject them from the onset.

A photo of him standing with Rahul Gandhi, Sam Pitroda and German State Minister for Foreign Affairs was shared by him on the 22^nd of August. Rahul Gandhi who was on a four day visit to Germany and UK to give talks and speeches was accompanied by none other than Shashi Tharoor. Shashi Tharoor was therefore holding conferences on a wide variety of topics and was helping his party prop up Rahul Gandhi as a probable face for the upcoming elections while the people from his home state battled with the devastating floods. Is the lack of empathy a trait which the Congress leaders share or is it mandatory to be a part of the Congress?

It is important to note that all this while Shashi Tharoor had been urging people to donate and take part in relief work through the same Twitter handle. But the question that remains is whether social media campaigning was enough, wouldn’t it have made more of a difference if the Congress MP would have chosen to stay in the state rather than supporting its residents from the outside. It is because of these reasons that the Congress MP needs to be questioned, for he was conspicuous by his absence at a time of dire need.