Thiruvananthapuram: Speculations over BJP’s candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls against Congress MP Shashi Tharoor from the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram seat in Kerala continues after initial reports of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman being considered .
As per the grapevine, the latest name doing the rounds is that of MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar — a Malayalee and a near match to Tharoor in style.
By now, Tharoor has completed a hat trick of wins from his constituency. In his debut and the 2019 polls, his victory margin was huge only a few votes short of one lakh. The only time he had to struggle was in the 2014 polls, but managed to win by 15,000 votes.
It was in 2014 that his wife Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in a Delhi hotel.
Incidentally, among the 20 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state it was only in Thiruvananthapuram that the BJP managed to finish second in 2014 and in 2019. In all the other constituencies, they finished in third place.
Though Tharoor contests under the Congress ticket, he gets a sizeable number of votes especially among the first time voters in the age group of 18 to 22 thanks to his near impeccable charm. It’s here that the BJP wants to checkmate him and hence the name of Chandrasekhar has surfaced.
He is known for his language and is tech savy, a key criterion for the first time voters.
Of late, Chandrasekhar is often seen in the state and that’s when rumour mills have started to wok overtime that maybe the BJP is planning to field him in the upcountry constituency, which Tharoor knows like the back of his hand.
Another favourable aspect that the BJP feels is this seat is contested by the CPI- the second biggest ally of the ruling CPI-M led Left.
In the previous two elections, the CPI had a tough time finding a suitable candidate and when it did, it failed miserably by the Left Democratic Front candidate finishing a distant third.
With the national leadership of the BJP determined to win seats from the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, they are planning to find a suitable candidate to the Nagercoil Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu, which borders the Thiruvananthapuram capital district as when the giants of the party come for campaigning, there will be no issue of logistics.
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