PM could have won LS polls from anywhere: Tharoor

He was replying to questions on the efficacy of having thinkers and accomplished professionals nominated to Rajya Sabha as opposed to them contesting the Lok Sabha polls.

“Indian democracy provides for both kinds (elected and nominated). Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,if he had chosen to contest this year,would have certainly won from anywhere in the country,” he said.

Singh is an elected Rajya Sabha member from Assam and had lost the only Lok Sabha elections he contested from the South Delhi constituency in 1999.

Tharoor said it was the Congress party that decides if a party leader should contest the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha elections.

Tharoor said macro-level politics involving policy,ideas and development planning and micro-level politics,as practised in an electoral constituency,were very different.

The Lok Sabha provided for the people to demand certain development works from the government through their representatives,he said.

Tharoor said this difference was probably the logic behind the Constitution makers going in for the Rajya Sabha,where accomplished professionals and thinkers could be elected and nominated.