Shashi Tharoor Eyes 4th Straight Term As MP From Thiruvananthapuram: 5 Facts

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is seeking a re-election from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Mr Tharoor, a three-time Parliamentarian, will be up against BJP's Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a minister in the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. 

Here are some facts about Shashi Tharoor:

1) Born on March 9, 1956, in London to Chandran Tharoor and Sulekha Menon, Shashi Tharoor spent his childhood in India and attended schools in Mumbai and Kolkata. Mr Tharoor graduated from St Stephen's College in Delhi. He pursued higher education at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US, where he earned a Master's degree and a PhD in International Affairs.

2) Before joining politics, Mr Tharoor had an impressive stint at the United Nations, where he spent nearly three decades working in various capacities. From handling key responsibilities in peace-keeping after the Cold War to serving as senior advisor to the Secretary-General and then rising to the position of Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, he evolved into a seasoned diplomat. 

3) In 2009, Mr Tharoor returned to India and successfully contested on a Congress ticket from Thiruvananthapuram. During his maiden tenure as an MP, Mr Tharoor served as a Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs in the Congress-led UPA government. In 2014, despite a BJP wave reducing the Congress to just 44 seats, Mr Tharoor retained his Thiruvananthapuram seat. He won his third successive election during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

4) Mr Tharoor found himself in the middle of a massive controversy after his wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a Delhi hotel in 2014. Four years later, in 2018, the police charged him with abetment to suicide. The three-time MP was cleared of all charges in August 2021.

5) Apart from being a seasoned politician, Mr Tharoor is a prolific writer and has authored numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction. Some of his popular works include The Great Indian Novel, Riot: A Love Story, Inglorious Empire and Pax Indica. He is also popular for his vast vocabulary and his use of lesser-known words, such as algospeak and doomscrolling, creates social media trends from time to time.