From nearly 3 decades in UN to 3-time MP: 10 things about Shashi Tharoor
The Congress will get its first non-Gandhi chief in more than two decades as the result of the Congress presidential election will be declared at the party headquarters on Wednesday. The winner between senior leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Shashi Tharoor will succeed Sonia Gandhi as the party's next president.
Congress MP Tharoor, who actively campaigned for the race, has already said there are no ideological differences with Kharge. Tharoor also made it clear that the election was not for any personal gain, but "for the betterment of the party and by extension, the country".
10 things about the Shashi Tharoor:
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Born in London in 1956, Shashi Tharoor was educated in India and the United States. He returned to India in 2009. A PhD from Fletcher School of law and diplomacy, Massachusetts, Tharoor founded and served as the first editor of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs - academic journal of international relations, currently in its 47th year.
He served at the United Nations for nearly three decades as a peacekeeper, refugee worker, administrator and the Under-Secretary General during Kofi Annan's leadership before joining Indian politics.
Currently, the Thiruvananthapuram MP serves as the chairperson of the parliamentary panel on chemicals and fertilisers and previously chaired the parliamentary panel on information technology.
During the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Tharoor was the minister of state for human resource development and minister of state for external affairs.
Tharoor was named 'Global Leader of Tomorrow' in 1998 by the World Economic Forum in Davos and has also received the Commonwealth Writers Prize and Spain's highest civilian award in 2012, among other awards.
Before his political career, he served at institutions including Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute, and Advisory Boards of the Indo-American Arts Council, American India Foundation, according to Tharoor's website.
Tharoor has served at human rights organisation Breakthrough and was also appointed an International Adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva from 2008-2011.
Tharoor is the most followed Indian politician on Twitter till 2013, before being overtaken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Tharoor is also the author of several books including critically acclaimed India: From Midnight to the Millennium. He has written both fiction and non-fiction, some award-winning books which talk about Indian politics, foreign policy, society, among other themes.
On Wednesday, Tharoor's team has written to the party's chief election authority, flagging "extremely serious irregularities" in the conduct of the election in Uttar Pradesh and demanded that all votes from the state be deemed invalid. Tharoor's campaign team has also raised "serious issues" in the conduct of the election in Punjab and Telangana.
