Will the voters of Thiruvananthapuram send Congress leader Sashi Tharoor to the Lok Sabha for the fourth consecutive term, or will they elect BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar or decide in favour of veteran CPI leader Pannyanan Raveendran?

Nobody has an answer to the aforesaid questions as the constituency is witnessing a tough fight this time.

The Thiruvananthapuram constituency stands out as one of the most prominent battlegrounds in the country. Sashi Tharoor faces formidable opponents in Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP and Pannyan Raveendran, a strong CPI candidate in this constituency.

The Lok Sabha constituency comprises six Assembly segments: Nemom, Kovalam, Neyyattinkara, Parassala, Vattiyoorkav, and Kazhakkoottam. In 2019, Tharoor trumped BJP leader Kummanam Rajasekharan by a margin of 99,989 votes. He emerged victorious, gathering 416131 votes (41.4 per cent) of total votes, followed by BJP’s Kummanam Rajasekharan—316142 votes (31.4) and CPI’s C. Divakaran–258556 votes (25.7).

Thiruvananthapuram has traditionally favoured the Congress, though the CPI had won four times from here. Among those who have won on CPI ticket are party stalwarts MN Govindan Nair (1977); KV Surendranath (1996); PK Vasudevan Nair (2004); and Pannyan Ravindran (2005), who is being fielded this time as well.

The Congress won the seat in 1980 (Neelalohitadasan Nadar); K Karunakaran (1998); and VS Sivakumar (1999) .A Charles won the seat for the party in 1984, 1989 and 1991, a feat Shashi Tharoor replicated in 2009, 2014 and 2019.

The 2021 Assembly elections saw CPM come up trumps in all but one of the seven segments. What these results portend for the Parliament elections is anybody’s guess, but as a rule, Kerala has voted against the national trend as evidenced in 2019 when it returned UDF from 19 out of 20 seats while NDA-BJP was making huge gains elsewhere.

Union minister and BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar, though a Keralite has always been based in Bengaluru. But he is not an unfamiliar figure in Kerala. As the owner of Kerala’s top media channel, the Asianet News, Chandrasekhar’s influence spans across regional media.

He was part of the BPL TV from 1994 till he sold his stakes in 2005.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar is now crisscrossing the constituency to reach out to the voters. He is taking a particular interest in extending its reach beyond the core Hindu voters. He is taking care to reach out to the Christian community by meeting up with the bishops and visiting the community strongholds.

The Congress is raking up the alleged business connections between Rajeev Chandrasekhar with CPI-M senior leader E P Jayarajan to allege of CPI-M-BJP nexus in the polls.

Jayarajan, who is the Left Democratic Front (LDF) convenor, recently said that the BJP has fielded strong candidates in Kerala and the electoral fight will be between the LDF and the BJP

CPI candidate Pannyan Raveendran has had an early bird advantage after being declared a candidate on February 26. The LD F has a campaign machine that matches that of the NDA. The LDF has managed to paint the town red before rivals could even get a start. The CPI has fielded Pannyan Raveendran, to win back not just the seat but also its lost honour, as the party was pushed to a pitiable third slot in the last two times, finishing far behind the BJP.

Simplicity being Pannyan’s hallmark he enjoys the aura of a bard, attracting the masses, cutting across age, gender and political affiliations. A clean track record and the people’s leadership image are what make Pannyan stand out among the trio. This is exactly what the CPI has been trying to cash in on.

The seemingly walkover win for Tharoor scenario has changed. A section of the coastal population harbours resentment towards both the Left government and Shashi Tharoor. The BJP camp has naturally slid in to fish in these troubled waters. Both the LDF and BJP are also doing their best to reap electoral gains from a mild anti-incumbency wave against Tharoor. The left camp is attacking Tharoor over his controversial Hamas remark and statement on the Ayodhya Ram temple issue.

Tharoor’s assertion recently that even Narendra Modi would struggle to unseat him from the Thiruvananthapuram seat underscores how confident he is in winning the seat. He has a larger-than-life aura in the collective conscience, but Rajeev Chandrasekhar of the BJP and Pannyan Raveendran of the CPI are strong contenders for the seat. Political analysts say it’s no cakewalk for Shashi Tharoor this time.