Thiruvananthapuram: BJP has opened account to the Lok Sabha from Kerala with actor-turned politician Suresh Gopi winning the Thrissur seat by a margin of nearly 75,000 seats.
As the counting is almost in the final stages, out of the 20 seats, the Congress-led United Democratic Front ensured victory in 18 seats, ruling CPM-led Left Democratic Front and BJP-led NDA in one seat each.
In 2019 UDF had won 19 seats and CPM one.
While Congress leader Rahul Gandhi retained the Wayanad seat with a margin of around 3.5 lakh votes, which is lower than the margin of 4.3 lakh votes he secured last time, AICC general secretary K C Venugopal wrested the Alappuzha seat that the Congress lost to CPM last time.
BJP's Rajeev Chandrasekhar put up a good fight against Congress's three-time sitting MP Shashi Tharoor at Thiruvananthapuram by maintaining a lead of over 10,000 at one stage. But the coastal and rural areas helped Tharoor retain the seat for the fourth consecutive time.
Suresh Gopi had put up a tight fight at Thrissur in 2021 Assembly elections and 2019 Lok Sabha election by considerably increasing BJP's vote share by 11.8 percent and 17 percent respectively, though he could then finish in third place only. This time the actor-turned politician received strong support from the BJP national leadership with Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a road show at Thrissur and even attending Gopi's daughter's wedding ceremony at the famed Guruvayur Sree Krishna temple just ahead of the elections.
Gopi, who is a former Rajya Sabha MP, was also quite active in the constituency over the last few years. In what was considered as a bid to woo the Christian vote banks, he also offered a golden crown to a popular church in the constituency.
Despite winning 18 seats, Congress faces major embarrassment as party senior leader K Muraleedharan could finish only in third place at Thrissur. This has already triggered allegations of Congress-BJP under currents in Kerala to help the saffron party open an account in Kerala.
Congress lone woman MP from Kerala Ramya Haridas lost the seat to CPM leader and devaswom minister K Radhakrishnan.
For the ruling LDF the defeat in 19 out of the 20 seats is a major embarrassment. Anti-incumbency against the Pinarayi Vijayan government and the allegations over the shady payments made by controversial firms to Vijayan's daughter's firm are also considered to be the reasons.
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