Politics is all about being in present: Tharoor

Jun 23, 2011 |

IANS

New Delhi

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Politics is all about being in the present, unlike sports in which planning for the future was possible, writer-politician Shashi Tharoor, the Lok Sabha member from Thiruvananthapuram, says.

“As a Lok Sabha MP, no complaint (by the people) is too trivial,” Tharoor said here on Wednesday evening, launching the book “The Winning Way” authored by sports commentator and writer Harsha Bhogle and his wife, advertising and communication consultant Anita Bhogle. Drawing parallels between sports, particularly cricket, and politics, he said unlike in sports “planning for the future was much less possible in politics”.

“Politics is much better short term than long term,” Tharoor said who lost his job as minister of state for external affairs after he came under fire for alleged conflict of interest activities and political indiscretion. He said it was easy to bring in new people to sports than politics.

“The hunger is there. Both in sports and politics, it is about one word in the middle of the title — its winning,” the MP said. He said every (political) party is riven with differences and while work ethics are non-negotiable in sports, it varies from party to party, job to job. He said he cannot compromise work ethics in his constituency as “it (the constituency)was very demanding”. However, “there is a little hypocrisy in both sports and politics” in terms of personal and the team’s goals, he said.

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