In the iconic Oscar-winning movie ‘Sound of Music’, there is a song which runs as follows:

How do you solve a problem like Maria?/ How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?/ How do you find a word that means Maria?/ A flibbertigibbet/ A will-o'-the-wisp.

If one replaces Maria with Shashi Tharoor, that will describe the predicament of the Congress High Command now. Tharoor is Maria and Dennis The Menace rolled into one for the Congress.

But why is Tharoor so upset with the Congress? To start off, it was seen to it that he would not get a fair chance to win the presidency of the Congress when the so-called elections were held. The dice was loaded heavily in favour of an ageing Mallikarjuna Kharge. The First Family, rather the ‘only family’ that rules the Congress as its fiefdom, wanted only a ‘yes man’ at the top. And Tharoor did not fit that bill.

Tharoor was and is known to take independent and rational decisions and would not have cared for the Family’s standpoints. His rise to the top would also have meant an eclipse of the Gandhi Parivar, especially the future of the ‘Yuvraj’.

He had reportedly said the Congress Working Committee, the party’s most important decision-making body, is just a talking room while “decisions are made elsewhere.” He was keen on converting the talking room back to a decision-making room.

Finally, he was not only defeated but later deliberately humiliated for showing the temerity to stand against the wishes of Sonia Gandhi. From then on, Tharoor was snubbed and kept away from the top posts in the Congress.

Tharoor then started focusing on Kerala. This is one reason that he openly said in a recent interview that he had ‘other options’. To quote him verbatim, he had said: “If the party wants to use me, I will be there for the party. If not, I have my own things to do. Don't think I have no other choice,” he said.

But Tharoor is reluctant to leave the party by himself. He wants to play the martyr’s card forcing the Congress to push him out into the wilderness.

Tharoor has reportedly said he was ready to lead Kerala if the party asks him. The party in Kerala is facing a leadership crisis. If it does not work hard, it will face a third setback in Kerala and . that the constituent parties are not satisfied and that there is a possibility of a setback at the national level as well.

He pointed out that in independent opinion polls, he is leading in the Jana Sammithi in Kerala. “If the party needs it, it can use this public support. If the party wants to use me, I am always ready. I will not leave the party because of disagreements. I got more votes in the Thiruvananthapuram contest than the party support”.

But the Congress high command does not want to push the ‘man of letters’ (who inadvertently ended up writing the manifesto of the CPM) into the waiting hands of the Left parties and the BJP. The Left has already indicated that it will not leave Tharoor a political orphan. The BJP is looking at the long road ahead where it intends to push the Congress out of the political landscape in Kerala and occupy the second slot, knowing well that after the Pinarayi era, the CPM will see a steep decline.

This is where the ‘Maria Syndrome’ comes in. The high command does not know what to do with Tharoor. It wants to keep him and also throw him out. There is a popular saying in Malayalam about a medicine: It is so sweet that you cannot spit it out, but it is also bitter that you cannot swallow it. That, in a nutshell, is Tharoor.

The Congress high command has rejected the offer made by the MP to lead the party as a CM candidate in the Kerala Assembly elections due in 2026.The Congress has left  Tharoor in the limbo by not offering a post in Delhi and shutting the doors in Kerala.

The next few days would be crucial. While Tharoor is holding his cards close to his chest, the Congress High Command has summoned all the top leaders in the state to Delhi to tackle the ‘Maria’ of the party.