THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : The BJP-led NDA, which narrowly missed victory in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat even with its all-time best vote share of around 36%, is upbeat that it could emerge first in three of the seven assembly segments with significant margins.
The saffron camp believes these gains will favour the party in the upcoming local body polls and also in the 2026 assembly election, where it is hopeful of bagging a few seats from the capital.
Significantly, the three assembly segments – Nemom, Kazhakkoottam and Vattiyoorkavu – where the NDA’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar made it big, are currently represented by LDF MLAs. Of these, the NDA could maintain a lead of over 22,000 votes in its traditional stronghold, Nemom.
Interestingly, Nemom is the assembly seat where the LDF prides to have closed the saffron party’s account in 2021 by a margin of nearly 4,000 votes. The NDA also made significant gains in the IT hub of Kazhakkottam, leading by a margin of over 10,000 votes.
Kazhakkoottam is the assembly segment where the NDA has been consistently finishing in the second spot in the last two assembly elections and a Lok Sabha poll held since 2016. O Rajagopal was the only other BJP candidate who could come first in the Kazhakkoottam assembly segment by a margin of over 7,600 votes in 2014.
Vattiyoorkavu assembly segment saw the BJP leading by over 8,000 votes. The saffron party had set its eyes on Vattiyoorkavu after Rajagopal came first in this segment in 2014, leading by a margin of around 3,000 votes. However, BJP’s Kummanam Rajaseskharan who contested in Vatiyoorkavu in the 2016 assembly poll lost by a margin of over 7,600 votes.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, when Kummanam was the BJP’s candidate in Thiruvananthapuram, he could finish only in the second spot in the Vattiyoorkavu assembly segment. The BJP was pushed to the third spot in Vattiyoorkavu in the 2019 assembly bypoll.
In the assembly election that followed in 2021, the saffron party jumped back to the second spot in Vattiyoorkavu. “The gains in the Lok Sabha election in Thiruvananthapuram are definitely a shot in the arm for the NDA as the alliance has set before itself the task of capturing power in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in the upcoming local body poll. The NDA also aims to convert the leads in these assembly segments into seats in 2026,” BJP national executive member P K Krishnadas told TNIE.
The BJP also managed to increase its vote share in coastal segments, thanks to the special outreach programme it carried out in these areas. The improved performance of the party in all assembly segments helped increase its overall vote share in the constituency by 4.22% compared to 2019.