Kottayam: Shashi Tharoor reached Puthuppally on Saturday to campaign for Congress candidate Chandy Oommen for the September 5 assembly bypoll. Chandy, however, was already an elected representative when Tharoor met him first time, 17 years ago. The two remembered their maiden meeting at Delhi’s St Stephen’s College during an election rally at Pambady, a small town in the Puthuppally assembly segment.
The meeting happened on the famed campus sometime in 2006 when the capital city’s oldest college celebrated its 125th anniversary. Addressing the supporters of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), Chandy recollected sending an email to Tharoor inviting him to a function relating to the anniversary celebrations. Tharoor, a former student union president of the prestigious institution, was serving as the UN’s under secretary then. Chandy was the student body’s head.
“When I reached the campus a young man came running towards me. He introduced himself to me as Chandy Oommen. He told me he was the first Malayali to become the student union president there 33 years since I was elected to the post,” Tharoor remembered.
Tharoor praised Chandy as a candidate who got the opportunity to learn political lessons from his father, the late Oommen Chandy.
It was Tharoor’s first election rally in bypoll-bound Puthuppally and the first major public event since his recent elevation to the Congress Working Committee. The Thiruvananthapuram MP made an emotional appeal to the people of Puthuppally to vote for Chandy Oommen, sharing his 17-year-old bond with Oommen Chandy. He also remembered his first meeting with Oommen Chandy when the latter went to Switzerland to attend a World Economic Forum (WEF) meet in 2006.
“He was there wearing a mundu and shirt. I asked him how could he survive the cold there with that dress. He told me it was not an issue. Unfortunately, after a couple of days, he slipped on the snow and broke his leg,” Tharoor remembered.
The Congress MP was all praise for Oommen Chandy’s mass contact programme which he initiated when he was the chief minister. The programme, through which the chief minister himself addressed complaints and concerns of lakhs of people, had received a UN recognition.
In his election speech, Tharoor also brought up the rubber farmers’ crisis and criticised the Left government in Kerala for not keeping its promise to pay them a support price of Rs 250.
He said Chandy Oommen should be elected as he can be an elected representative who could address the needs of the young population in fields such as sports, education and technology.
Ahead of the meeting, Tharoor attended a road show organised by the Kerala Student Union from Manarcaud to Pambady. He also visited the tomb of Oommen Chandy at St George Orthodox Church, Puthuppally.
