THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Despite the BJP putting up its best performance ever in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, Congress’ sitting MP Shashi Tharoor managed to clinch the seat for a fourth consecutive time in a keenly watched triangular contest. However, his margin fell sharply to a little over 16,000 votes from the nearly one lakh vote margin he recorded in 2019.
The outcome in Thiruvananthapuram was almost a re-enactment of the 2014 Lok Sabha election when BJP’s O Rajagopal led in four of the seven assembly segments. However, the final push from the coastal and semi-urban segments helped Tharoor win by a margin of over 15,000 votes.
While Tharoor and BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar vied with each other for the top spot in the initial hours of counting, LDF’s Pannian Raveendran was nowhere in the reckoning throughout the day. Rajeev maintained a lead that climbed to over 20,000 votes by noon. But Tharoor marched past his rival and finished off the race, bagging 37% of the total votes polled.
Rajeev ended up garnering 3.42 lakh votes and over 35% of the vote share, BJP’s best-ever performance in Thiruvananthapuram. In 2019 and 2014, BJP recorded a vote share of 31.3% and 32.45%, respectively, in the constituency. Though assembly segment-wise results are awaited, it is reliably learnt that voters in the coastal segments stood loyal to Tharoor.
According to preliminary estimates, Rajeev managed to attract a large chunk of young and urban voters. The BJP is also examining if its efforts to make inroads into coastal segments during the campaign yielded the desired results. Interestingly, the Tharoor camp itself has admitted that not all coastal votes fell into his kitty.
Cross-voting from the LDF camp in favour of the UDF was an oft-heard charge whenever Tharoor won in Thiruvananthapuram. However, this time, LDF’s votes were more or less intact in the constituency. Pannian’s vote share of around 26% denoted a marginal increase compared to the corresponding figure of LDF in 2019. There is also an assessment that Pannian was able to attract voters from the coastal segments.
