New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) Shashi Tharoor, who quit his ministerial post over alleged links to the IPL Kochi franchise, said in the Lok Sabha Tuesday that his "conscience is clear" and that he had asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to have the charges against him thoroughly probed.

"My conscience is clear. I have done nothing improper or unethical, least of all illegal," Tharoor said two days after he resigned as minister of state for external affairs.

"I am new to Indian politics, but I have a long track record in public life unblemished by financial irregularities," Tharoor, with a tri-colour shawl draped round his shoulders, told the Lok Sabha amid pin-drop silence.

Refuting "fanciful and malicious charges", Tharoor said that he has told the prime minister to have the charges against him thoroughly investigated.

The former high ranking UN diplomat said he resigned in order to enable parliament to proceed with the legislative business and to focus on greater challenges ahead.

In an eloquent speech, Tharoor, a well-known author, thanked the people of Thiruvananthapuram for electing him to the Lok Sabha and underlined that he believed in "an India of pluralism, tolerance and diversity".