Rajeev Chandrasekhar concedes defeat to Shashi Tharoor after tough battle; coastal population of Thiruvananthapuram came to help of Congress leader

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After putting up a strong fight during most parts of the election counting, BJP's Rajeev Chandrasekhar conceded a defeat to UDF's Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram constituency. This is Shashi Tharoor's fourth consecutive win in Thiruvananthapuram. Shashi Tharoor won the election by just less than 16,000 votes in the constituency. A tight contest reminiscent of the 2014 Shashi Tharoor-O Rajagopal contest took place in Thiruvananthapuram.

While Rajeev Chandrasekhar had a clear upper hand in the urban regions, Tharoor made a strong comeback in regions such as Neyyattinkara and Parassala. In addition to that, the support of the coastal population helped Tharoor to build a healthy lead over Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Tharoor managed to secure victory by overcoming the BJP's allegation that he did not do anything for Thiruvananthapuram despite winning thrice in the constituency. Although Pannyan Raveendran ended up in the third position, the votes bagged by the CPI leader posed a huge challenge to Tharoor.

Compared to the previous two elections, Rajeev Chandrasekhar had raised a strong challenge to Tharoor. The Union Minister started his campaign works focusing on the coastal region, which is the stronghold of Tharoor. He came forward to study the issues faced by the coastal regions and to find solutions to these issues. In the meantime, the Congress started a discussion in the coastal region on the Centre's decision to implement the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The Congress defended Rajeev Chandrasekhar's move to develop cracks in the coastal vote bank by strongly campaigning that the coastal region in Thiruvananthapuram did not get the benefit of the SagarMala project. There was concern in the Congress camp when a section of coastal voters announced their support for the BJP. However, the coastal community, which has been traditionally voting for the Congress, came to the support of Tharoor.