Gujarat Assembly Election 2022: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has opened up for the first time after the party released a list of star campaigners for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly election in which his name was not listed.
The Congress had released a list of 40 party leaders who would lead party's campaign in Gujarat. The list mentioned party president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi as 'star campaigners'. Leaders like Sachin Pilot, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, Digvijaya Singh, Kamal Nath, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Ashok Chavan were also included but Shashi Tharoor was ignored.
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"The Congress knows who or what is best for it, so the question of disappointment is irrelevant," Tharoor told PTI when asked whether he was disappointed at being left out.
The National Students Union of India (NSUI) had invited Tharoor for the event in Gujarat but sources close to him said he had to decline as his name was not there on the star campaigners' list.
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Tharoor, who represents the Thiruvananthapuram seat in Lok Sabha, had contested the recent election for Congress president against Mallikarjun Kharge. Tharoor lost the election.
In the past, Tharoor has campaigned for the party in Lok Sabha elections in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai in 2014 and 2019; in Kerala Assembly elections in 2011, 2016 and 2021; local self-government elections in Kerala in 2010, 2015 and 2020; and most recently in the Noida by-election for Pankhuri Pathak.
(With inputs from PTI)
