Shashi Tharoor Backtracks on Industrial Growth Stance, Calls for More MSME Start-ups in Kerala:

On Sunday, Shashi Tharoor, an MP from congress, revised his position concerning the NITI Aayog recommendation to Kerala regarding industries. In his revision, he mentioned that the state needs more MSME start-ups in existence, in practice, and not merely on official documents. Disappointed by the state of the start-up ecosystem in the state, he posted: “Dismayed to see that the Kerala start-up entrepreneurship story is not what’s been reported.” Along with this statement, he also forgot to mention that the article he posted claimed that due to the closure of over 42k MSME businesses in the state during the past nine years, at least 1,03,764 employees were rendered jobless.

“On a separate note, the only silver lining is that at least the GoK claims have positive intentions. We need more MSME startups - and not just hypothetically. Truly, Kerala must head this way!” he has posited. These statements did have some effect, considering P Rajeeve, the State Industries Minister dismissed this news report as ‘bizarre’. “I replied in detail during the Assembly on February 10 and restated that some recent claims made by Union commerce and industries Piyush Goyal in the Parliament concerning the closure of 1700 MSMEs in Kerala over the past four years are also misleading,” he states.

Rajeeve also noted that while 30 percent of MSMEs shut down within the first year in the rest of the country, only 15 percent of them shut down in Kerala. This report, in his view, was conducted nefariously because it did not disclose its sources. Recently, Tharoor has made statements that bring into question the industrial development rates in the Congress dominated state of Kerala.

The alleged member of the Congress Working Committee upset party followers after penning an article to an English newspaper lauding Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan government for its phenomenal industrial policies. Curious enough, the Thiruvananthapuram MP's post came in the limelight just two days after the Congress central leadership held a melting pot session with their Kerala leaders at the head office in New Delhi to formulate their strategy for next year's Assembly elections.