With eyes on Kerala CM’s post, Shashi Tharoor meets top IUML leadership

Thiruvananthapuram: Ahead of next year’s Assembly elections and the internal rumbling in the Kerala Congress, MP Shashi Tharoor has met the top leadership of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) to make his case for the top post of the state.

Even though it will be the Congress high command which will pick the Chief Minister for the state, however, it has been the practice all along that they will get the view of the IUML also for the top post.

The IUML which also played a vital role in the massive victory of Priyanka Gandhi from the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency is also known to the party’s high command.

Tharoor first met IUML supreme leader Sayyid Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal and followed another second top leader of IUML and veteran legislator P.K. Kunhalikutty.

Tharoor’s presence in the Muslim stronghold Malappuram district for the past four days attending various programmes organised by the IUML and other Muslim organisations has sent a strong signal about Tharoor finding his support for the top post of the state.

A political critic on condition of anonymity said that the Congress state leaders have always engaged in factional feuds.

“Tharoor is a very sharp person and he knows that if at all he has to stake a claim to the prized post, he needs the support of the IUML (the second biggest ally of the Congress-led UDF) and his meeting with Thangal and Kunhalikutty will cause ripples in state Congress,” he said.

Political analysts said that ever since Tharoor unsuccessfully contested the post of Congress party, he had other plans and the prime was to become the Chief Minister of his state which goes to the Assembly polls next year.

They said that even though Tharoor lost the party president post, he was made a CWC member irking some Congress leaders in Kerala.

It has also been said that his four-day visit to Malappuram also shows that he is putting his best foot forward in the race for the top post.

IANS