Kochi, July 11 -- A survey projecting Shashi Tharoor as the most popular nominee for the chief minister's post among United Democratic Front (UDF) candidates, which the Thiruvananthapuram MP himself shared on his 'X' account, in the forthcoming Kerala Assembly polls has spread disquiet within the state Congress camp. The opinion survey, prepared by an agency named AT Vote Vibe and with a sample size of over 1000 random individuals, claimed Tharoor was voted the most popular leader among UDF chief minister-hopefuls with 28.3% support. While 27% said they could not pinpoint a name, leader of the opposition VD Satheesan came second with 15.4% support followed by former LoP Ramesh Chennithala with 8.2% vote. Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal was the choice of just 4.2% of the respondents. The survey comes at a time when there's friction between Tharoor and the Congress leadership, both at the state and national levels. Last month, the CWC member publicly admitted that there were 'differences of opinion' with the current leadership and complained that he was not invited to campaign for the Nilambur Assembly bypoll. At the same time, he was called upon to lead a delegation of MPs to a bunch of countries including the US and Brazil. After his return from the assignment, Tharoor wrote in a newspaper article that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'energy, dynamism and willingness to engage' was a prime asset for the country on the global stage. When asked about the survey results projecting Tharoor as the most popular choice, LoP Satheesan told reporters, "There are scores of such surveys coming out every day." UDF convenor Adoor Prakash was more direct. "Everyone is doing surveys. Some people are deliberately creating such surveys to get some talking-points (before the media). There's no need for such surveys. We will take advice from the senior leaders of the AICC on such matters," said Prakash. Meanwhile, what muddied the waters further in terms of the relationship between Tharoor and other state Congress leaders was his July 8 article for an international portal about the excesses during the Emergency in the mid-70s. The article was translated into Malayalam and was published by Malayalam daily Deepika. In a veiled swipe at Tharoor, Congress leader Manickam Tagore on Thursday said when a colleague starts repeating BJP lines word for word, one begins to wonder whether "the bird is becoming a parrot". Tharoor has said that the Emergency should not be remembered merely as a dark chapter in India's history, but that its lessons must be fully understood. Without naming anyone, Tagore, who is a Congress MP from Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu and the party's whip in the Lok Sabha, said on X, "When a Colleague starts repeating BJP lines word for word, you begin to wonder - is the Bird becoming a parrot? Mimicry is cute in birds, not in politics."...