Part I - The blog wars - Attack of the BLOGS

Among the many accusations being hurled at Mr.Tharoor, one of the most prominent is his highly "Americanised" way of life. No wonder then that the election in Trivandrum also seems to be following the U.S model of having people working exclusively for negative campaigning. In the U.S it is not unusual for the televions to run positive ads "endorsed" by the candidate and have negative ads run by some organisation. In our scenario however it seems to be spilling out of the internet. Nair tea stall is going to take a look at the Blog wars.

Tea stall first became aware of the kantakasani blog through an article from Indian express, where they raised some genuine questions regarding Tharoor's residency status which was replied by none other than his personal assistant. Kantakasani which at first seems like a well researched blog, now seems to solely exist for the purpose of belittling and slandering Mr.Tharoor. One of their claims is in holding Tharoor directly responsible for the U.N failure in protecting Serbia's muslims (as he was on vacation) leading to Europes worst genocide since world war two. It points out that tharoor was one of 58 under secratary general (no big acheievment), was not the youngest etc. Infact 58 is the number of mathais in Kottayam it seems.

Well Tea stall's take on this is that at best it was collective U.N failure and tharoor will get part of the blame, but if he went on vacation and there was no one to take care of his duties, then what kind of an organisation is the U.N ? Is Kantakasani telling us that being one of 58 under secretary general was no big deal hence we should vote for some else who was .......err...what exactly ?????

On the other hand there are a lot of blogs supporting Mr. Tharoor in fact some of them are close to the kind of adulation malayali's reserve for Mohanlal and Mammooty. It is kind of understandable since it is the first time the blogging young people have had the chance to be represented by someone so famous and actually really well educated. Some one they can identify with ?? scaling new heights is a compilation of Blogs supporting Mr.Tharoor complete with a widget and everything you would possibly want to know about the man.

There are a few objective blogs also written in pretty much an unbiased way (Tea stall's opinion) which would be Tvmtakies and TvmRising which actually tells of his meeting with Mr.Tharoor. Tea stall recommends you guys read it.

Here is one more against him Who is this Tharoor which lists against him... hold on..1) being born in London 2) being married to a Canadian wife 3) Wanting to take Sunday off among other unforgivable sins of the man.

Now the best of the lot, there is the huge huge debate going on in Orkut Trivandrum community where a lot of the bloggers including yours truly (since very recently) are active. If you do not have an orkut account, it is worth getting one to see this. Allegations there include some serious insinuations as Tharoor wearing Mundu to swindle the public, buying the Trivandrum election seat with his money power, doing an expensive interent campaign etc. Actually these are allegations being handed out a lot in Trivandrum also along with his sudden affection for khadar.Other allegations against the man are 21 crore assets. Sitting in AC rooms, endorsing Coca Cola and being a zionist.

Tea stalls take on all this is that negative campaigning to slander a person just reflects your own insecurity. While trying to prove that Tharoor is mediocre what are the voters supposed to look at ? The other candidates resume's boast of student party activism, sitting in dharnas and a lifetime of obscurity? Maybe these are tactics that will work but to tea stall it is just plain cheap.

On a foot note, Tea stall does not want to ask anyone to vote for any particular candidate but laments the decadence of the campaigning to such levels. It is indeed ironic that while the left opposes evrything American (at least publicly) it seems to be taking a leaf out of the american way of running a negative campaign.

Tea stall would like to leave you all with this campaign video of Tharoor. We do not know if it was paid for by Congress or Tharoor or if it is a fan video. We have never seen a video of this kind for a candidate in kerala before. All it misses is a "I endorse this message" from Tharoor.