Lok Sabha Election 2024: Shashi Tharoor vs Rajeev Chandrasekhar? High-octane poll battle likely in Thiruvananthapuram
195 candidates released last weekend was Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who has been fielded from Thiruvananthapuram, a seat in Kerala considered Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s stronghold. While Congress has yet to announce its candidate from the constituency, if they choose to field Tharoor again, it will be one of the high-profile contests in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024. Fielding Chandrasekhar is part of BJP’s aim to make inroads in Kerala, where it had failed to win any seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
In one of his recent visits to Kerala, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about the goal of achieving a two-digit figure in the state in the upcoming Lok Sabha 2024 polls. Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Information Technology and Skill Development, is a three-time Rajya Sabha member and will contest Lok Sabha polls for the first time. Tharoor, former Union Minister of State for External Affairs, has won the seat three times since 2009.
Also Read: BJP can win ‘double digit’ number in Kerala if…: Shashi Tharoor crunches number ahead of Lok Sabha polls 2024 Chandrasekhar, 59, brings a technocratic background, having worked at Intel, founded BPL Mobile, and later sold his stake for US $ 1.1 billion. Tharoor, 67, is a former international civil servant, an author, and a public intellectual apart from a politician. Chandrasekhar and Tharoor are from Kerala, yet neither was born there.
Chandrasekhar was born to Malayali parents in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. His ancestral home is in Kondayur in Thrissur district of Kerala. Tharoor was born in London, United Kingdom, to Chandran Tharoor and Sulekha Menon, a Malayali couple from Palakkad, Kerala.
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