Thiruvananthapuram:

Shashi Tharoor – looking to win the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat for a fourth consecutive term – has once again questioned the campaign strategy of the Left front, even as he admitted that long-standing variations in political ideologies could mean parties that have allied in one state could be rivals in another, and that this is neither surprising nor a point of concern for the Congress.

Speaking to NDTV after casting his vote, Mr Tharoor acknowledged ideological differences between the Congress and the Left, but said, “When we are fighting an election to change the government in Delhi… this is a national election. The objective is to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party.”

Mr Tharoor – who earlier too had complained that the Left parties, members of the INDIA bloc, were dividing anti-BJP votes – asked, “How is it then that the entire Left campaign has focused on attacking me and my party… and not said one word against the BJP, its government or candidate?”

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“All I am asking is… how is it the entire Left campaign has focused on attacking me? I only asked an innocent question… is this a friendly match? Normally, you expect a candidate not only to speak for himself but also attack rivals. But here, there was only one rival being attacked. That was all.”

READ | Left Campaign Attacking Me Can Only Help BJP: Shashi Tharoor

In the 2024 election Mr Tharoor faces the BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar and the Communist Party of India’s Panniyan Raveendran. The CPI, part of the ruling Left front in the state, is also part of the INDIA opposition bloc led by the Congress. However, the party has fielded a candidate of its own.

The CPI has also fielded a candidate against Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad; senior leader Annie Raja is standing against the Congress leader. The Congress’ decision to field Mr Gandhi from Kerala and not return him to win back the family stronghold in Amethi in Uttar Pradesh was criticised by the Left.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, whose Communist Party of India (Marxist) is also part of the INDIA bloc, demanded to know why the Congress and Mr Gandhi had chosen to fight an ally, when he could take on the BJP in a potentially statement-making contest in Amethi.

Mr Tharoor, however, played down any possible rift between the allies.

“Each Indian state has its own political character… it is not uncommon that we are allies in one state and not in a neighbouring state. For example, in Kerala the Left and Congress-led UDF (United Democratic Front) have been at loggerheads for over 55 years… that won’t change overnight.”

“But next door, in Tamil Nadu, the CPM, CPI, Muslim League… are our allies, and the Congress is allied with the (ruling) DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam). So no issue… just as in Delhi the AAP and Congress have an understanding but in Punjab we don’t. So this isn’t surprising. Nobody is worried.”

Asked if he is confident about his chances from Thiruvananthapuram, Mr Tharoor said, “I am as confident as I was earlier. The people of Thiruvananthapuram have entrusted me with their faith in three successive elections, and am very confident they will do so again in this election.”

He said the pattern of the last three elections was being repeated. “The BJP campaigns expensively. I campaign extensively,” he said, underlining his ‘local’ credentials. “I seem to be the only principal candidate voting in the city… all others seem to have allegiances elsewhere. I vote and live here… this is my only address and my final address since my return to India…”

The Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat is one of 20 in Kerala, all of which vote today, in the second phase of polling. In 2019 the Congress swept the state, winning 15 seats. Its allies, the India Union Muslim League, won two, and the Kerala Congress and Revolutionary Socialist Party one each.

The CPIM, not an ally then either, got just one seat, while the BJP got zero.

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New Delhi:

The Congress’ Shashi Tharoor is bidding for a four-peat of wins from Thiruvananthapuram, but arguably faces his toughest test yet in Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

The senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader, meanwhile, must shake off controversy over his poll affidavit – which said his taxable income for FY2021/22 was Rs 680, compared to Rs 17.5 lakh for FY20 – to win in a state that tends to look unfavourably on the BJP’s politics.

Mr Chandrasekhar has said he expects “the politics of performance” to give him an edge, and that the voters of Thiruvananthapuram would recognise the Congress and Shashi Tharoor had done nothing over the past 15 years. “People are sensible… they know.”

With a hat-trick of wins behind him, Mr Tharoor has exuded confidence.

Speaking to NDTV this week, he said the BJP was welcome to open a bank account in the state, but they should not expect any other kind, meaning they will not win any seats.

In 2019 Mr Tharoor, also an ex-Union Minister, scored his biggest win yet, polling over four lakh votes and more than 40 per cent of the vote share. He beat Kummanam Rajasekharan by nearly one lakh votes. The Communist Party of India’s C Divakaran was a distant third.

The win underlined Mr Tharoor’s hold; he won six of the seven Assembly segments in the seat, losing only Nemom by less than 12,000 votes. This time the CPI – which is part of the ruling Left Democratic Front – has turned to 78-year-old veteran Pannyan Raveendran.

That the CPI chose to field a candidate raised eyebrows because the party is, on paper, part of the Congress-led INDIA opposition bloc.

The Congress has played down the import of this contest. Party comms boss Jairam Ramesh emphasised that all Left parties remain a part of the group but “this does not preclude group partners from contesting against each other in different states, especially in Kerala”.

The choice of Mr Raveendran is to make a point to voters; the Left leader is quite unlike his rivals, who share similarities despite being on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

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Mr Tharoor and Mr Chandrasekhar are both highly educated professionals who turned to politics after careers in the diplomatic service and the IT industry.

Mr Raveendran, meanwhile, dropped out of middle school, has been a member of the party since his teen years, and has a strong distaste for the trappings of a politician’s life.

Perhaps as significantly, Mr Raveendran is a former MP from Thiruvananthapuram.

He won the seat in 2005 – after the party’s PK Vasudevan Nair, the sitting MP and a former Chief Minister died. And he did so by polling over 50 per cent of the votes. He chose not to defend his seat in the next full election – 2009 – when Mr Tharoor claimed his first win.

Mr Raveendran’s campaign, at least on a national level, has flown under the radar, particularly after the Congress and BJP began sparring over Mr Chandrasekhar’s poll affidavit, which led to Mr Tharoor being sued for defamation and getting a “strict warning” from the election Commission.

READ | “Strict Warning” To Shashi Tharoor Over Remark On Union Minister

The Congress leader, though, is confident of a win.

Thiruvananthapuram isn’t the only Kerala seat to feature an INDIA vs INDIA contest; in Wayanad the CPI has fielded Annie Raja against Mr Gandhi, while the Communist Party of India (Marxist), also an INDIA member, has nominated sitting Alappuzha MP AM Ariff against senior Congress leader KC Venugopal, who won this seat in 2014.

For the CPI, these seats are a litmus test. It has been leaking votes over the past few elections. In Thiruvananthapuram, for example, since polling over half of all votes in 2009, when Mr Raveendran won, the party came down to less than 30 per cent in 2019.

In Wayanad there was a big 13 per cent negative swing between 2014 and 2019.

In each case it has been the Congress and the BJP benefitting, and the latter party will hope the combination of its groundwork in the past few years and the fallout of the INDIA squabble will give it a boost to help win its first ever Lok Sabha seat from the state.

For 2024, the target of ‘abki baar, 400 paar’ will need the party to score seats in all states, even if it can count on a big chunk from its bastions in the Hindi heartland.

Kerala, and neighbouring Tamil Nadu, which has been almost as unfriendly to the party, together offer 59 Lok Sabha seats. In 2019 the BJP got only one of these. In 2014 it got zero.

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New Delhi:

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said the question of who could be an alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “irrelevant” in the parliamentary system because we do not elect an individual, but a party or coalition of parties.

Yet again a journalist has asked me to identify an individual who is the alternative to Mr Modi.

The question is irrelevant in the Parliamentary system. We are not electing an individual (as In a presidential system), but a party, or coalition of parties, that represents a set…

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) April 3, 2024

Taking to X this morning, Mr Tharoor said a journalist had asked him this question. “Yet again a journalist has asked me to identify an individual who is the alternative to Mr Modi. The question is irrelevant in the Parliamentary system. We are not electing an individual (as in a presidential system), but a party, or coalition of parties, that represents a set of principles and convictions that are invaluable to preserve India’s diversity, pluralism and inclusive growth,” he wrote.

“The alternative to Mr Modi is a group of experienced, capable and diverse Indian leaders who will be responsive to people’s problems and not driven by individual ego,” the Congress leader added.

The Prime Minister choice, he said, was a “secondary consideration. “Which specific person they will choose to be Prime Minister is a secondary consideration. Protecting our democracy and diversity comes first,” Mr Tharoor said.

A three-time MP from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram, Mr Tharoor is now gearing up for his fourth Lok Sabha contest from the same seat. He is up against BJP leader and Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Left front candidate Pannyan Ravindran.

Over the past couple of weeks, Mr Tharoor has campaigning in his constituency for the upcoming election. Thiruvananthapuram votes in the second phase of Lok Sabha polls, on April 26.

Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala):

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that he has served the people of Thiruvananthapuram for 15 years and he is “very confident” of winning the Lok Sabha seat again.

“I’ve served the people of Thiruvananthapuram for 15 years. They know me and have seen my service. It’s not as if I’ve got anything to be ashamed of in my track record. I’ve been consistently available and attended to all the major issues,” he said.

“It’s always been a three-cornered fight here because I took the seat from the LDF. They had won it two times before me and then in the last two times, the BJP came second. So we have to take both candidates seriously. I’m very confident that I would prevail,” Mr Tharoor added.

Notably, BJP has fielded Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar against Congress MP Mr Tharoor.

This is the first time that Chandrasekhar has been fielded for Lok Sabha polls. He also served as a national spokesperson of the BJP.

“This is the campaign I look forward to, the campaign I will start very shortly. I will confront the vital issues of the people of Trivandrum,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.

Congress released its first list of candidates for 39 Lok Sabha constituencies. The names have been announced for Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshwadeep, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Telangana and Tripura.

Of the total 39 candidates announced, 16 are from Kerala, seven from Karnataka and six from Chhattisgarh, four from Telangana. Two from Meghalaya and one each from Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim and Lakshwadeep. The list was released after the party held its Central Election Committee meeting on Thursday.

The BJP has already released its first list of 195 candidates. The Lok Sabha polls are likely to be held in April-May this year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)