BJP's Rajeev Chandrasekhar Vs Congress' Shashi Tharoor At Thiruvananthapuram?

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday poised the battle of Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024 after the saffron party announced Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar's name to take on senior Congress Leader and three times MP, Shashi Tharoor.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar is a Rajya Sabha member and currently heading the Ministry of Information Technology and Skill Development. This will be his first Lok Sabha battle and that too against a Congress stalwart.

The BJP failed to open its account in Kerala in 2019 despite having Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a star campaigner, his unmatchable popularity, and the Centre's policies and good work done between 2014 to 2019.

In 2019, the BJP managed to win only 29 seats out of Southern India's 130, and most of them were from Karnataka and Telangana. Notably, both states now have Congress governments.

Earlier, when Rajeev Chandrashekhar was asked about the challenge of facing Shashi Tharoor, the BJP minister had said "it would be difficult to take on senior Congress leader in Thiruvananthapuram as he has been able to "sway the minds of the people".

"That is why he has been winning again and again from Thiruvananthapuram. I doubt anyone else will get an opportunity to win from there in the near future," Rajeev Chandrashekhar had said.

Kerala BJP workers were surprised after party top brass did not name State Unite Chief K Surendran in its first list comprising 12 names out of 20 Lok Sabha seats for Kerala.

BJP candidates list for Lok Sabha Elections 2024:

1. Palakkad: C Krishnakumar
2. Thrissur: Suresh Gopi
3. Alappuzha: Sobha Surendran
4. Pathanamthitta: Anil Antony
5. Thiruvananthapuram: Rajeev Chandrasekhar
6. Kozhikode: MT Ramesh
7. Malappuram: Dr Abdul Salam
8. Ponnani: Nivedita Subrahmanian
9. Attingal: V Muralidharan
10. Vadakara: Praful Krishna
11. Kasaragod: ML Ashwini
12. Kannur: C Raghunath