Lok Sabha elections: Kerala with nail-biting photofinishers in Thiruvananthapuram and Attingal

‘UDF lived up to its legacy and reputation by defending its bastions in southern Kerala against considerable political odds’

For the better part of Tuesday, the Lok Sabha vote-counting day, the electoral fight in the Thiruvananthapuram and Attingal Parliamentary constituencies in southern Kerala had the nail-biting intensity of a high-stakes 20/20 Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final.

In Thiruvananthapuram, the neck-to-neck race between Congress Working Committee (CWC) leader Shashi Tharoor, MP, and BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar rendered the outcome too close to call for the better part of the edgy day. 

Finally, Mr. Tharoor, a three-time MP, prevailed over his closest rival, Mr. Chandrasekhar, by a relatively low margin of 16,000 votes.

Mr. Tharoor’s halcyon days of 2019, when he defeated his nearest rival, a BJP leader, by nearly a lakh votes, seemed a distant memory and a covetable electoral statistic for posterity.

Nevertheless, he has indelibly carved himself into Kerala’s political history by being the only person to win the Thiruvananthapuram LS constituency for four consecutive terms.

Mr. Chandrasekhar could console himself with the thought that he had prevailed in the race for a few anxious hours, dented Mr. Tharoor’s victory margin significantly and raised the BJP’s vote share considerably in a parliamentary segment that had hewed to the UDF for four unbroken LS terms since 2009. 

CPI’s Pannian Raveendran, who trailed to third place, could take comfort in the fact that he maintained LDF’s vote share, an estimated 25 per cent of the total votes polled.