I am not needed in Kerala currently: Shashi Tharoor

The Congress Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor, who is currently in Bonn, Germany, has said that his presence in Kerala is not needed at the moment as most of the rescue operation is already done.

“Before coming here I visited all the places affected by the flood. All our minds are filled with thoughts of Kerala. I am constantly in touch with the state through social media. The first priority after any calamity is to protect the people. It has been done. 97 per cent of the work have been done,” he was quoted as saying by an online portal.

Tharoor is currently in Germany to attend a the World Malayali Council Meeting which Kerala’s forest minister K Raju is also attending.

However, there were clouds over his participation in the meet as he needed a ‘go-ahead’ from the Delhi High Court on Monday to travel to Geneva to meet former United Nations Secretary General late Kofi Annan’s family. He is also expected to seek international aid for the flood affected Kerala.

The politician is currently out on bail following his wife Sunanda Pushkar’s mysterious death in a posh New Delhi hotel four years ago. For travelling to foreign countries, Tharoor had approached the court on Monday morning as the court had earlier barred him from travelling abroad without the permission of the court.

Following Tharoor’s counsel’s plea to allow his client to travel abroad, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal granted the application.

It may be recalled that Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a hotel in the capital region on 17 January 2014 night. The couple had to stay in the hotel as the MP’s official bungalow was under renovation at that time.

However, to facilitate his travel abroad, the court had placed several conditions and asked the Congress lawmaker to furnish a fixed deposit of Rs 2 lakh which is refundable on his return to the country.