Her name is Sunanda. She’s from a Kashmiri family, has trained as a beautician, and runs a spa. She’s lived in Dubai but is keen to come back ‘home’ to India. When she does, she could be the next ‘daughter-in-law’ of the UPA government. Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs, is likely to be the next minister to get married while in office, after Jitin Prasada, minister of state for petroleum, whose nuptials took place in February.
The new lady in Tharoor’s life has been seen with him at social functions. The minister’s confidants have confirmed that a wedding is set to take place after Tharoor and his current wife, Christa Giles, complete their divorce. Giles, a Canadian civil servant who works with the United States on disarmament issues, is said to be undergoing a messy legal separation from Tharoor. She is Tharoor’s second wife; he was earlier married
to academic Tilottama Mukherji, whom he knew from his school days in Kolkata.
Interestingly, Tharoor isn’t the only minister in South Block to be in the midst of a marital crisis. Perneet Kaur, the other minister of state working under foreign minister SM Krishna, is estranged from her husband Amarinder Singh, former Punjab CM. Singh is in a very public relationship with Pakistani journalist Aroosa Alam. The upshot of all this is that neither minister of state in the MEA can attend official functions accompanied by a spouse!
