'2024 will be more like 2019': Shashi Tharoor on Lok Sabha clash with BJP's Chandrasekhar

‘2024 will be more like 2019’: Shashi Tharoor on Lok Sabha clash with BJP’s Chandrasekhar

Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor has said that the electoral contest in 2014 was the toughest battle he faced and predicted that 2024 will be a “slam dunk for him”.

Tharoor, a three-time MP, will face Union minister and BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar in the constituency in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 26.

On the campaign trail, News18 caught up with Tharoor and asked him whether the high-stakes contest with Chandrasekhar will be his toughest fight till date.

The Congress leader, however, responded with a confident “no”.

“No, my toughest fight was [in] 2014. There was a Modi wave. There was a lot of nasty and personal attacks on me following the passing away of my wife. It was a tough one and the results were also close,” he said.

Tharoor said that 2024 will be more like 2019, when he cruised to victory.

“2019 was not as tough and I ended up with a very convincing win with a better margin than expected … and 2024 looks much more like 2019 than 2014,” he said.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Tharoor defeated BJP’s Kummanam Rajasekharan by a margin of 99,989 votes.

Speaking about BJP’s prospects in Kerala, Tharoor said that BJP really does not have too many constituencies where they stand a chance.

“Thiruvananthapuram is the only constituency where they have come second twice in a row … they have put their best foot forward,” he said.

Considered to be the political nerve centre of Kerala, the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency is locked in a three-way contest between sitting MP and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, BJP leader and Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and CPI’s Panniyan Raveendran.

Tharoor also spoke about the wealth redistribution row amid PM Modi launching a series of attacks on Congress for promising a caste and financial survey in its manifesto.

The Congress MP said that while the words “Muslim” or “redistribution” do not appear in the manifesto, the party’s broad idea is to have an accurate picture of the country by conducting a caste survey.