Lok Sabha polls: Chandrasekhar vs Tharoor? High-stake contest likely in Thiruvananthapuram

This will be the first Lok Sabha contest for Rajeev Chandrashekhar (right). Shashi Tharoor (left) is yet to be officially named as the Congress candidate from Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram is likely to witness a clash of titans with the BJP fielding Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a three-time Rajya Sabha, from the seat which is considered as Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s stronghold.

The BJP was unable to win any seat from Kerala in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

This will be the first Lok Sabha contest for Chandrashekhar, the Union Minister of State for Information Technology and Skill Development. Meanwhile, Tharoor has been saying this might be his last Lok Sabha fight.

The Congress veteran has been winning from Thiruvananthapuram since 2009.

Who are these leaders?

Both Tharoor and Chandrashekhar are from Kerala. But none of them were born or live in the state. Tharoor was reportedly born in the United Kingdom and Chandrashekhar in Gujarat.  Tharoor struggled with the Malayalam language in his initial days but that was never his handicap. He struck a chord with all sections of society starting from techies to farmers and women.

In 2009, Tharoor won by a huge margin of nearly 1 lakh votes. However, in 2014, BJP veteran O Rajagopal gave Tharoor a tough fight and the margin was reduced  to 15,470 votes. But Tharoor made a comeback in 2019 by bagging over four lakh votes while BJP candidate Kummanam Rajasekharan was the second with around 3.16 lakh votes.

Meanwhile, Chandrasekhar is an accomplished technology entrepreneur who has worked with global tech giants such as Intel. He began his parliamentary journey in 2006 as a member of the Rajya Sabha, representing Karnataka. He has also been a prominent voice in the Narendra Modi government on various issues, including digitisation, emerging technologies, and artificial intelligence.

BJP's bet on Chandrasekhar

The BJP believes Chandrasekhar, who has family roots in Thrissur, could spring a surprise in Thiruvananthapuram. This move is also seen as the BJP’s southern push.  Recently, during his visit to Kerala, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the BJP is aiming to achieve double digits in the state. Tharoor had then said it would be possible if both these digits were zero. Having a target of winning 370 seats on its own, the BJP is looking at the southern states to help it get to this number.

The BJP announced 12 names for Kerala -- ML Ashwini from Kasaragod, C Raghunath from Kannur, Prafulla Krishna from Vadkara, MT Ramesh from Kozhikode, Abdul Salam from Malappuram, Niveditha Subramanian from Ponnai, C Krishnakumar from Palakkad, Suresh Gopi from Thrissur, Shobha Surendran from Alappuzha, Anil K Antony from Pathanamthitta, V Muraleedharan from Attingal and Rajiv Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram.