Tharoor’s message for BJP’s latest Congress recruits

"They will have to repent..." Shashi Tharoor made this prediction about his former colleagues who joined the rival camp.

Transcript

00:00I do have a problem when people go to an ideology that is the opposite of what they have always

00:04practiced and what they've always believed. I think they will sadly have to repent their choices.

00:30So

00:55across the country there seems to be this perception of

00:58being built that the DJVs were putting many leaders from the Congress. Do you believe

01:03that that perception is ending the Congress's campaign? Well if you look at the Karnataka

01:08situation I see five MLAs, two MLCs, 11 former MLAs, four former MLCs and one former MP have

01:16all joined the Congress literally in the last few months and weeks. So it does suggest that

01:21people from other parties are seeing the Congress as the inevitable victorious party in Karnataka.

01:28I must say that I'm disappointed with a couple of the people you mentioned joining

01:32the BJP for the simple reason that I know them to be secular minded individuals and I don't think

01:38they will find a welcoming home in a party that is fundamentally committed unfortunately to a

01:43particularly communal agenda and therefore I think they've made a mistake. I'm therefore

01:49disappointed and not hesitating to conceal that. There may be dissatisfactions often related to

01:56individual feelings of frustration or of aspirations thwarted. I think every individual

02:01has a right to pursue their own political dreams and I have no problem with that but I do have a

02:06problem when people go to an ideology that is the opposite of what they have always practiced and

02:11what they've always believed in. I'm not saying that no one has a right to leave a party to

02:17change their mind. As I said we have welcomed many in Karnataka recently. They have the right

02:23to change their mind but there must be some principles. I've always said what is politics

02:27about? Politics is about a vision of a better society. We are working for our idea of a better

02:34India and that means we have certain principles, certain values that we stand by. Now we can take

02:40our commitments to another party that shares the same values and principles but how can we go to

02:46a party that has the opposite set of values and principles? That I find difficult to understand

02:51and that's where my disappointment with some of the people you mentioned who have gone to the

02:56dark side as one might say. I think they will sadly have to repent their choices

03:04as they see how they are treated in their new home. They will not be treated

03:08as they are perhaps expecting to be.