New Delhi

Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram is gearing up for an unprecedented electoral contest between the serving Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor of the Indian National Congress and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's Rajeev Chandrasekhar, also a minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet. 

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Chandrasekhar recently said that he is ready to debate with Tharoor over development in Thiruvananthapuram, a Lok Sabha constituency which territorially covers most of the Kerala capital.

Tharoor promptly accepted the challenge and added that voters in the constituency know who has been evading a debate.

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"Yes, I welcome a debate. But the people of Thiruvananthapuram are aware of who has been evading a debate till now. Let us debate politics and development," Shashi Tharoor, a three-term MP from Thiruvananthapuram wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

"Let us debate price hike, unemployment, corruption, communalism, and the BJP's 10 years of propagating politics of hatred. Let us also discuss about the development of Thiruvananthapuram and the visible progress we have made in last 15 years," he added.

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The Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency is in the middle of a high-voltage poll campaign. Chandrasekhar is in the fray for a Lok Sabha seat for the first time and has been assigned the task of replacing Tharoor. 

Tharoor himself has been significantly popular in and beyond his Thiruvananthapuram constituency. He defeated BJP's Kummanam Rajasekharan in the 2019 Lok Sabha Polls by over 100,000 votes, garnering over 41 per cent of the total votes polled. But in 2014, the former diplomat faced a scare after BJP's O. Rajagopal came close to winning from Thiruvananthapuram before beginning to trail in the last rounds of vote counting. Tharoor finally managed to win in 2014 by just over 15,000 votes.

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The 2014 election results show that Tharoor is not exactly undefeatable in Thiruvananthapuram despite it being described as a Congress bastion. It is this exact attribute of the constituency that Chandrasekhar is currently riding on in his bid to get elected from Thiruvananthapuram.

Kerala is set to vote to elect its 20 Lok Sabha MPs on April 26. Results will be declared on June 4.

(With inputs from agencies)