Lok Sabha close fights: It is Shashi Tharoor vs Rajeev Chandrasekhar for Thiruvananthapuram seat 

The Congress on Friday introduced the primary record of 39 candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The Congress Election Committee on Thursday cleared the names of all 15 sitting MPs from Kerala. Senior Congress chief Shashi Tharoor will contest from Thiruvananthapuram.

Final week, the BJP launched its first record of 195 candidates from 16 states and two Union Territories (UT) for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Within the first record, the BJP fielded Union ministers resembling Mansukh Mandaviya, Jitendra Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Gajendra Shekhawat, Bhupender Yadav, G Kishan Reddy, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajeev Chandrashekhar, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Arjun Munda. 

Sitting MP Shashi Tharoor will contest from Thiruvananthapuram for the fourth consecutive time. The previous Union minister has been profitable the Thiruvananthapuram seat since 2009. Earlier than 2009, the seat oscillated between CPM and the Congress. In 2019, Shashi Tharoor received over 4 lakh votes whereas BJP candidate Kummanam Rajasekharan was the second with round 3.16 lakh votes. Then again, this might be Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s first Lok Sabha election.

The opposite large chief within the contest is CPI chief Pannyan Raveendran, who had received the elections in 2005.

Each Chandrasekhar, 59, and Tharoor, 67, are well-liked faces for his or her events. Tharoor, a former diplomat, contested for the Congress presidential election in October 2022 in opposition to Mallikarjun Kharge. He confronted considered one of his hardest challenges after his spouse Sunanda Pushkar’s demise in 2014. However Tharoor managed to win the seat.

Then again, Chandrasekhar has had a profitable stint because the Minister of State for IT and Ability Improvement since July 2021. He has a convincing grip on the company sector. In a private capability, Chandrasekhar has been a know-how entrepreneur engaged within the semiconductor manufacturing sector.

After his identify was declared within the first BJP record for Lok Sabha, Chandrasekhar mentioned: “I’m very excited and honoured. That is the primary alternative I’ve received to contest within the Lok Sabha. I specific gratitude to PM Modi, Union Residence Minister Amit Shah and occasion president JP Nadda who’ve chosen to discipline me as their candidate within the capital of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram… It is a marketing campaign I stay up for and I’ll begin it very shortly…The individuals of Thiruvananthapuram are extra highly effective and they’re going to resolve who they need to see victorious. BJP may have a decisive mandate within the coming elections…” . 

On Monday this week, Chandrasekhar began his maiden election marketing campaign because the BJP’s candidate in Thiruvananthapuram.

BJP is planning large for Kerala. At current, the saffron occasion has no MP from the sourthern state. The BJP has put its guess on 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 Ok Antony from Pathanamthitta, V Muraleedharan from Attingal and Rajiv Chandrasekhar from Thiruvananthapuram.

If Chandrasekhar loses the competition in opposition to Tharoor, it could be troublesome for him as a Union minister as he’s not a Rajya Sabha member.