Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday said he may have to miss the final two weeks of the current Parliament session to campaign for the upcoming Kerala Assembly elections, breaking what he described as his near-perfect attendance record.Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Tharoor said the election campaign would likely keep him away from the House. “I have an almost 100 per cent attendance record throughout my parliamentary career. But now it looks like this election is going to make that impossible,” he said.
“I will probably not be here for the last two weeks of Parliament in order to campaign,” he added.Tharoor also said that the Congress would soon announce its candidates for the Kerala assembly elections. “In the next couple of days you will see some candidates being announced. The filing of nominations is open until Monday and we will certainly meet that deadline,” he said.The Congress leader described the Kerala polls as a crucial contest for the party, saying it aims to unseat the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front government.“Kerala is an important election for us. The CPM-led LDF government came back to power last time, which is unusual because for nearly half a century the two fronts have alternated in government. We do not want them to repeat that. We want to change this government this time,” he told news agency IANS.Tharoor also noted that the early election schedule had left parties with limited time to prepare. Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly is scheduled for April 9, leaving only a few weeks for campaigning.“The early election schedule has taken all of us by surprise. We were expecting the elections in the last ten days of April, but now the polling is on April 9. That means only a few weeks are left,” he said, adding that the shorter campaign period poses a challenge, particularly for new candidates who need time to connect with voters.Campaigning has already intensified across Kerala, with political parties launching a high-voltage outreach drive ahead of the polls as alliances prepare to finalise their candidates.
