PM could have won LS polls from anywhere: Tharoor

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could have won the Lok Sabha elections this year if he had chosen to contest, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said in New Delhi on Monday.

Tharoor, who was at the World Economic Forum-India Summit in New Delhi to participate in a debate on politics, said he himself chose to contest the Lok Sabha polls this year because "I thought I need to earn the right to be in politics" having been long outside the country.

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.