india

Updated: Mar 23, 2019 23:15 IST

With barely any buzz on ground in the state’s capital city, only political posters plastered across Thiruvananthapuram indicate that Kerala, which has 20 Lok Sabha seats, will go to polls on April 23.

It remains nonetheless a key constituency, as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has never won a single Lok Sabha seat in the state till date, believes its chances are the brightest they’ve ever been.

They have fielded Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker and former governor of Mizoram Kummanam Rajasekaran (66), against two term incumbent Member of Parliament and former union minister Shashi Tharoor (63) from Congress. Hoping to upset their calculations is C Divakaran (76), an MLA from Nedumanagad, and ruling alliance member Communist Party of India’s candidate.

Tharoor is confident that his victory margin “will go up significantly” this time around. In the 2014 general elections, he barely scraped through with 15,470 more votes than his opponent. To put that in context, more than 8.73 lakh votes were cast in the constituency. Fighting him was O Rajagopal from the BJP — the lone party MLA in the state — who has fought and lost six assembly and Lok Sabha elections since 1989.

“This time people have seen my work over two terms now and I am fully confident of a bigger victory,” Tharoor said.

As per the 2011 census, Hindus constitute 54.73% of the state’s population, while Muslims and Christians are 26.56% and 18.38% respectively. In Thiruvananthapuram, the majority community is decisive in deciding the outcome of the polls.

For the BJP, this is good news, as it hopes to cash in on the consolidation of the majority community post-Sabarimala. Since September 2018, when a constitution bench of the Supreme Court ruled that women of all ages are permitted to enter the temple, both the Congress and the BJP and its affiliates have strongly protested the verdict. The Travancore Devaswom Board, which looks after the temple dedicated to the celibate Hindu god, Ayyappa, had prevented women between the ages of 10 and 50 from entering the temple.

“I expect BJP will do very well across all the 20 seats in the state, surprising several people. People are fed-up with this bipolar polity between Congress and the Left and want to give BJP a chance. They have seen the violence unleashed by the left government, lack of development and contrast it with the good work done by the Modi government at the Centre. This will ensure our victory,” said Rajasekharan, whose bearded and smiling visage is plastered on posters across the constituency.

Equally sanguine about his prospects is C Divakaran the CPI candidate who declares, “My ground support is swelling by each passing day.”

Political commentator Joseph C Mathew says, “Though the state capital is witnessing a fierce three-cornered contest, the main fight is between Tharoor and Rajasekharan. Whatever the outcome, the winning margin will be very low.”

“The RSS has strong roots in the state capital. Though the constituency has more than 60 per cent Hindu voters, a consolidation is unlikely in the name of Sabarimala. But Rajasekharan is the best candidate for the saffron party in the state,” said Mathew.

(Inputs by Ramesh Babu)