Shashi Tharoor affirmed his commitment to national service, stating he is “available for the country when needed.”
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00:00But are you sad or disappointed at the way in which your party reacted or your party
00:06colleagues reacted?
00:07Look, I mean, my party or my party leadership is entitled to its opinion of my abilities
00:13or lack thereof, and I think that is really for them to explain.
00:17I have absolutely no comment to make on that.
00:21I am honored to have been entrusted with the responsibility, and I will fulfill that
00:27responsibility, just as I have fulfilled every responsibility entrusted to me in my rather
00:33long working life, whether at the United Nations or in the Congress Party.
00:38I have fulfilled every task given to me with sincerity and commitment, and I intend to bring
00:44the same qualities to bear in my service in this particular mission.
00:49We are not talking about, you know, it's a 10-day affair.
00:52I'll be going to Delhi.
00:54In any case, we have a Parliamentary Standing Committee meeting on Monday and Tuesday on
00:58various issues, including on this particular issue.
01:01I'm assuming that I will get further details of the mission after going there, and we expect,
01:06I'm sure the delegation will get briefings from the Ministry of External Affairs, and we
01:12will proceed on that basis.
01:14I mean, I think that right now the focus is on a job of work that needs to be done for the
01:19country, and I'm truly honored to have been asked, and I will give my very best, as I
01:24always try to do.
01:26Have you informed the party when you received this invitation?
01:28Yes, indeed.
01:30No, I certainly informed them of the first call I got, which was two days ago, and I also
01:36mentioned to the minister who called me, who was a Parliamentary Affairs Minister, that
01:39I assumed that he would be talking to the party leaderships of opposition parties, and
01:43he assured me that he would be.
01:46He also let me know that I was not the only one he was calling.
01:49There are other opposition MPs that he was calling, and I found it entirely appropriate,
01:55as I said, that the country should rally together on this particularly important issue, and now
02:02that I've been entrusted with the task of leading one of the delegations, I intend to
02:05give it my best shot.
02:06Sir, is there any communication gap between you and the party?
02:11Because this happens continuously.
02:13This happens?
02:14This communication gap between you and your party.
02:16No, the party has my telephone number, and they can call me any time they like.
02:20I don't think there's any difficulty there.
02:23So as far as I'm concerned, I don't really see any communication gap.
02:28Sometimes one learns about certain statements from the media.
02:31That may mean that we have other means of communication as well, but I don't think there's a particular
02:37gap that I'm particularly worried about.