India wants a new Tharoor, his name is Kamalesh Sharma

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, May 8, 2007 : Overturning the apprehensions of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after Shashi Tharoor lost the race to become UN Secretary-General last year, India has decided to field Kamalesh Sharma, High Commissioner to the UK, as its candidate for Secretary-General to the Commonwealth.

The decision to throw India’s hat in the ring was taken a couple of weeks ago, although it has been in the realm of speculation for many months now.

Sharma, said to be close to the Sonia Gandhi family, is a retired Indian diplomat. He was named High Commissioner to the UK three years ago, one of three ex-diplomats posted by the UPA government to the highly coveted jobs in London, Moscow and Washington DC.

The contest for the post of Secretary-General takes place at the Commonwealth heads of government summit in Uganda in November, bringing to an end the six-year term of Don McKinnon of New Zealand.

Once it got over the Shashi Tharoor debacle, India began to seriously eye the top Commonwealth job, believing that the prestige and the influence that came with it was in line with its emerging power status in the world.

However, only a few weeks ago it was expected that Shyam Saran, till recently Foreign Secretary and currently the PM’s special envoy on the Indo-US nuclear deal, would be India’s candidate to the Commonwealth.

Manmohan Singh, with whom Saran had worked very closely in recent years, was said to be keen that Saran ``get something, ’’ and even the British government had informally told New Delhi that they would be happy to support Saran’s candidature.

That was when Kamalesh Sharma reportedly resignalled his interest in the Commonwealth job. Highly placed sources in the government said Sharma’s close connections with the Gandhi family helped him win the race against Shyam Saran.

At one point of time, in fact, Sharma’s influence in the foreign policy establishment was so large that he was even reportedly offered the job of India’s ambassador to the US, after Ronen Sen, the current incumbent, retires in August.

But Sharma declined the offer, saying he would much rather contest the job of Secretary-General to the Commonwealth. ``It is Asia’s turn, and India should rightfully have it,’’ a diplomat said, quoting Sharma, on condition of anonymity.

Sharma will now have to contest against the Maltese foreign minister Michael Frendo, who put his hat in the ring a month or so ago. A fortnight ago, Mohan Kaul, director-general of the Commonwealth Business Council, became the second candidate to join the fray, telling PTI in London that he had already spoken to PM Manmohan Singh, asking him for India’s support.

New Delhi’s recent keenness for Sharma can also be gauged from the fact that when Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs adviser Iftikhar Chowdhury recently asked India for its support, he was told that New Delhi was preparing to send its own man.

India, which had begun wincing at the thought of another election after Shashi Tharoor’s humiliating defeat last year – even though MEA sources insist Tharoor came in an ``honourable second’’ – know they cannot avoid another round of diplomatic heartburn and bruises that often come with intense lobbying.

This intense lobbying that is currently consuming the MEA is not, in fact, restricted to the Commonwealth job. The UPA’s all three political appointees – Kamalesh Sharma in London, Ronen Sen in Washington and Kanwal Sibal in Moscow -- end their three-year tenures this August.

With Sharma out of the fray, it remains to be seen what the UPA decides to do with its remaining high profile ambassadors.

ENDS