Shri Chandrashekhar is an MP from Rajya Sabha
Setting up a potentially mouth-watering contest in a state where it failed to win a single seat in 2019, the BJP has fielded Union minister Rajiv Chandrashekhar from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, taking on senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. The constituency has been held for three consecutive terms.
This will be the first Lok Sabha contest for Mr Chandrashekhar, who is the Minister of State for Information Technology and Skill Development, and is currently a Rajya Sabha MP.
The Union minister’s choice for the Thiruvananthapuram seat is indicative of the BJP’s focus on the southern states, where it had failed to make a significant dent in 2019, winning only 29 of the 129 seats (130 including Puducherry). At the age of 25, most of them came from Karnataka and the rest from Telangana. Both those states are now ruled by Congress.
In a sign of the tough fight Mr Chandrasekhar may face, veteran BJP leader O Rajagopal had praised Mr Tharoor in January and said it would be difficult to defeat the Congress leader in the Kerala capital as he was unable to do so. Are capable. “Rule the minds of the people”.
“That’s why he’s winning from Thiruvananthapuram again and again. I doubt anyone else will get a chance to win from there in the near future,” he said before reversing course a day later.
Having set a target of winning 370 seats on its own in the Lok Sabha elections – more than the 303 seats it won in 2019 – the BJP is looking towards the southern states to help it reach this number. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on a two-day visit to Tamil Nadu and Kerala this week.
With 39, Tamil Nadu sends the fifth-highest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha, while Kerala has 20. BJP did not win a single seat in both the states in 2019.
In the list of 195 names released by BJP on Saturday, 12 names were announced for Kerala.
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