Congress MP Shashi Tharoor takes part in a cleanliness drive near Thiruvananthapuram yesterday.
By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram
Congress party MP Shashi Tharoor responded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Clean India challenge yesterday by removing garbage in a fishing hamlet of his constituency.
The former UN diplomat was among nine celebrities, and the only politician, Modi invited to join his nationwide campaign modelled on ice-bucket challenge on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary on October 2.
He accepted his invitation through a tweet while on a foreign tour.
Tharoor who was sacked as Congress spokesman for his support to Modi’s campaign, however, reminded the prime minister that the Father of the Nation stood not only for physical cleanliness but for “cleanliness of mind, heart, soul and spirit” and sought to cleanse India of “bigotry, hatred, intolerance and divisiveness.”
“As I used to say, whatever your politics may be, what matters is the country thrives,” the MP from the Kerala state capital said. “A clean India requires no label. Why cede Gandhiji’s sanitation drive to any party? It’s a national cause.”
He also thanked Modi for “making clean India a top national agenda.”
“I am a Congressman and my ideology is there should be clean surroundings. I first arrived in this city when I was 10 years and at that time even after heavy rains, the city used to be clean due to the excellent drainage facility. But today, urban planning has failed and the place here has become like a sewage dump,” said Tharoor.
Tharoor said it was Mahatma Gandhi who said sanitation is more important than independence.
“Cleanliness is a national programme... not the programme of any particular party,” he added.
Asked if it was part of Modi’s Swach Bharat campaign, he retorted: “You can give it any label. But remember, I did not invite any media here. My belief in cleanliness is taught in schools.”
Though the Congress distanced itself from the event and a spokesman mocked it as part of Tharoor’s cosying up to Modi, local leaders participated in the cleanliness drive on the outskirts of the state capital where India plans to build a deep-sea port.
“His attempt is to keep the BJP in good humour for reasons best known to him,” party leader Tharayil said, referring to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Congress councillor representing Vizhinjam in the city administration was among those who gathered there in solidarity with him including other representatives of people and officials of Jama’ah, the Muslim community council.
“You are the real stakeholders who have to live amid squalor,” Tharoor told them, announcing his decision to donate a biogas plant of 1 tonne per day capacity to the hamlet from the MP’s fund. “But the challenge of waste management goes well beyond photo-ops. Need systems, plants and central funding.”
On Friday, Tharoor, who insists that the Congress best represents the idea of India that he believes in, had repeated his stand on development devoid of politics at a function attended by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and his cabinet colleagues.
