Tharoor flays Cong not projecting CM candidate in UP

People in Uttar Pradesh did not vote for Congress as they knew Rahul Gandhi would not stay there to become the chief minister, party leader and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor said on Wednesday.

In his analysis of the results of the UP polls where the party fared poorly, Tharoor made a veiled criticism of the party's not project a chief ministerial candidate.

"RG (Rahul Gandhi) campaign clicked. UP voters who might have voted 4 (for) Congress did not do so because they knew RG would not stay on to govern them as CM," he twitted on the microblogging site.

He said the advantage with Samajwadi Party, which stormed to power in the state, was that voters knew who would be the chief minister.

"With the Yadavs, the UP voters knew who they would be getting for their votes; with us they did not. Essential 2 (to) project state leaders," he said.

On the issue of fighting corruption, Tharoor said Congress has worked harder on the issue than other parties.

"Actually, the victors in UP are more strongly opposed to Jan Lokpal than we are. We passed a Lokpal Bill; Samajwadi spoke agnst (against)," he said.