By IANS,
Thiruvananthapuram : Former UN undersecretary general Shashi Tharoor, the Congress candidate for the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, took everyone by surprise when he walked out of a live TV talk show Friday night.
P.G. Suresh Kumar, the anchor of the show organised by Asianet TV channel, described the incident as “unfortunate”. He told IANS: “When he walked out, the Left Democratic Front candidate P. Ramachandran Nair was responding to questions on MP Paniyan Ravindran. In fact Tharoor had answered all the questions that were put to him by me and also from the audience.”
“We were taken aback when he walked out. We rushed to him and asked him to stay as the programme would get over in 20 minutes, but he refused,” said Kumar.
Besides Tharoor and Nair, the others on the show were Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate and former MP M. Neelalohithadasan Nadar and the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president P.K. Krishna Das.
However, Tharoor’s chief campaign coordinator G.S. Babu, a local Congress activist who was witness to the event, had a different story.
“I was present at the spot. Tharoor answered all the questions put to him and at times the crowd was becoming a bit unruly. He immediately asked the policemen on duty to pacify and control the crowd. The policemen in turn politely asked him to leave to defuse the situation. And since he wanted things to cool down, he left,” said Babu.
Kumar said that Tharoor joined the hour-long programme 10 minutes late, at 10.40 p.m. and was there for around 30 minutes.
All the state TV channels are holding talk shows ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. At most places the police and those who conduct the programmes are finding it difficult to control the frequent outbursts from the audience during the heated debates.
Kerala goes to the polls on April 16 for its 20 Lok Sabha seats.