It always was a question of when and not whether India’s official candidate for the post of UN Secretary General, Shashi Tharoor, would pull out of the race. The overwhelming support for South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, in Monday’s straw poll at the 15-member UNSC signalled the end of a campaign that should never have begun. Many had cautioned the government that there was no reason for it to get mixed up in this election. That Tharoor was an impressive “also ran” — he consistently came second in the four polls of the 15-member UNSC — is a measure of his good people skills. But that is poor consolation for India’s foreign policy.

Violating UN diplomatic practice, where major powers and especially nuclear weapon powers do not bid for the top bureaucratic slot in the world body, the PMO had allowed itself to be persuaded that India should back Shashi Tharoor’s candidature. The result unsurprisingly has been the first diplomatic misstep by the Manmohan Singh government. So while analysing Tharoor’s withdrawal from the UN race it is necessary to observe that despite a wary foreign office, some PMO strategists got Dr Singh to personally lobby with other leaders in multilateral forums for “India’s candidate”. The political writing on the UN security council wall had been clear for some time: once South Korea’s nominee got China, Russia and France on his side, the US, UK and Japan had little choice but to back Ban. Opposing him would have pushed Seoul further away from Washington and into Beijing’s arms. Ban’s success underlines

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