Chennai: Mani Shankar Aiyar may have found his depth in electoral politics when he finished fourth in Mayiladuthurai in 2014. But the irascible diplomat-turned politico is unlikely to change. Even after the severe drubbing, he let go more verbal bombs at Narendra Modi, castigating him as an insult to the tea-seller’s profession. This was arrogance at its worst as Aiyar’s infamous tea boy remark had led to the Modi campaign taking off like a rocket on steroids. In fact, Modi may have to thank Aiyar for impelling the huge success as the chaiwallah touched millions with his chai pe charcha and various other campaign strategies that were based on the cup that cheers but not inebriate.
The Doon school prodigy — he topped every subject at school which is still a record went on to a Tripos in Economics in Cambridge where as a youthful communist he dabbled in varsity politics too in trying to get elected as president but failed despite Rajiv Gandhi’s active contribution because he was his junior at Doon as well as Cambridge. His success in electoral politics back home was just about 50:50 until the current rout where his deposit now lies with the Treasury. But, as the saying goes, the leopard won’t change its spots, even with a little bit of education.
The spinner of quotes that can be traced as the root cause of many an embarrassment for the rulers and those they rule, Aiyar got the Mayiladuthurai seat in the face of much opposition from the local Congress leaders. In his regular I-don’t-care-who-I-offend style he had said, “I was elected thrice from this constituency, including the 2004 LS polls which I won by an exceptional two-lakh margin. There are all kinds of curious creatures in TN Congress. No responsible leader has gone on record against my candidature.” However, his closeness to the Gandhis was of no help down in former Mayavaram, which may have wisely put him at the bottom of the heap.
“He won’t change,” a close friend of his said while comparing his style with that of another diplomat, Shashi Tharoor who welcomed the “conciliatory and inclusive statements” of Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi. “I am impressed by Narendra Modi’s conciliatory and inclusive statements. We must ensure, he lives upto them and works for the benefit of all Indians,” Tharoor, who was re-elected for the second time from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, tweeted.
Aiyar’s acerbic tongue is rather famous in high political circles, recall his friends. He was shunted out of the prime petroleum ministry because he said something tongue-in-cheek against the party top brass. Given the history of his verbal barbs, it was no wonder that he mocked Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions, saying a place would be identified for the Gujarat chief minister to distribute tea at the Congress HQ.
People won’t forget that he said, as intemperately as is his wont, “I promise you in 21st Century Narendra Modi will never become the Prime Minister of the country. ...But if he wants to distribute tea here, we will find a place for him,” Aiyar said at the venue of the AICC meeting in New Delhi.
Well, in any case, to quote him again, it was Aiyar who said, “Every five years, it is the masses who determine who will form the government. And in between those five years the classes determine what that government will do.”
Well, in the next five years he won’t be among the classes that will determine what the government of the former tea-seller Modi will do.
