Tharoor: Lost UN Secy-Gen elections, won Lok Sabha polls

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: He had fought and lost an election for the post of UN Secretary General, but now Shashi Tharoor has tasted victory at the hustings.

The Congress candidate today scored a thumping victory from the Thiruvanathapuram Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala to make his debut in Parliament.

Tharoor defeated his nearest CPI rival P Ramachandran Nair by a margin of over 95,000 votes.

53-year-old Tharoor had a 23-year-long career in the UN and had served as the Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information between June 2002 and February 2007, during the term of Secretary General Kofi Annan.

In 2006, he was the official candidate of India for the post of Secretary-General, and came second out of the seven candidates in the race.

The former diplomat and writer was declared as a Congress candidate from Thiruvanathapuram on March 19. Politics was an entirely different ball game for the former diplomat and writer, but the results showed that he played it with elan.

"I used to joke to the press that after my UN days are over, I will reboot. But after my foray into electoral politics, it seemed rebooting was not enough. I switched on to an entirely new operations system," Tharoor had said at a recent function here.