Shashi Tharoor: Man of words and many independent moves

Shashi Tharoor has shown he is no ‘quockerwodger’ – a word he introduced into our lexicon – acting on the instructions of an influential third party.

New Delhi:  By filing his nomination as Congress president on Friday, Shashi Tharoor has shown he is no ‘quockerwodger’ – a word he introduced into our lexicon – acting on the instructions of an influential third party.

In fact, the bestseller author, wordsmith, former UN diplomat and social media ‘pioneer’ with 8.3 million followers has demonstrated he is quite the opposite of a ‘quockerwodger’, a politically loaded term for a wooden puppet, and is instead independent minded, making moves on his own terms.

As speculation over who would be in the race for the Congress president mounted and most of his party colleagues demurred, Tharoor was the first off the block to declare he would contest.