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Shashi Tharoor In Stanford India Conference 2026: ‘India, That is Bharat – Growth, Governance and Identity’ was discussed at the Stanford India Conference in California, USA on Sunday. Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, BJP leader Annamalai and Tejashwi Surya participated in it. During this, there was discussion about the assembly elections held in many states of the country, SIR, number of seats in the Lok Sabha and representation of the southern states in the Parliament. In the discussion, Shashi Tharoor raised questions on the government regarding the recently concluded West Bengal Assembly elections.

He said that removal of names of a large number of people from the voter list and delay in verification of appeals could have an impact on the election results of the state. Tharoor said that names of about 91 lakh voters were removed from SIR. In this, 34 lakh voters had also appealed claiming that they are real voters.

Question on SIR process

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, there are some questions about SIR which need to be answered. Just look at the case of Bengal. 91 lakh names were removed from the voter list. Of them, 34 lakh living people have appealed that they are present here and are legally entitled to vote. Even today it may be known that about 31-32 lakh people were actually genuine voters in the remaining years, while the hearing of the case is going on, but they have lost their chance to vote.

BJP won in Bengal by a margin of 30 lakh votes. Now you tell me, is this completely fair and democratic election? Speaking on the results, he further said, In Kerala I think the removal of these names benefited the Congress, because CPIM had been adept at making double, triple and fourth nominations for a long time. It often happened. Therefore, he was removed from the list through SIR.

North has more representation in Parliament

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said, we have a situation in which there has been a tremendous increase in the population of the northern states. Every MP here represents more people than MPs in southern states. The southern states will feel that their rights have been taken away, because the northern states will have an absolute majority on many issues and possibly soon even a two-thirds majority, they will be able to impose their opinions on others.

Every year someone would like to pass such a law that Hindi should be made the national language and the Tamil speaking people would immediately stand up and strongly protest against it. On this, BJP leader Annamalai said, according to the census data, North India deserves more representation. Giving warning on this, Shashi Tharoor said, after delimitation, South India may feel deprived of rights.

How is such a population of UP rational?

Talking about the population of Uttar Pradesh, he said, is it logical to have a state like Uttar Pradesh with a population of 28 crores? Shouldn’t we give more powers to the State Reorganization Commission? When Mayawati was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, she passed a resolution demanding that Uttar Pradesh be divided into four separate states.