V Muraleedharan, Union Minister of State for External Affairs lost from Kerala’s Attingal constituency by 16,272 votes against Congress MP Adoor Prakash, according to the Election Commission of India.
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Muraleedharan, aged 65, joined the party during the Lok Sabha elections in 1998 and was deputed to assist former Vice-President of India Venkaiah Naidu at the central election control room in Delhi.
He has contested elections twice from Kerala, but could not register a victory. In 2009, he made his electoral debut by contesting Lok Sabha polls from Kozhikode constituency, but lost to Congress’ MK Raghavan with a margin of 2,52,591 votes.
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Later in 2016, he also contested the Kerala State Assembly polls from Kazhakootam and was defeated by CPI (M) leader Kadakampally Surendran with 7,347 votes.
However, he has held various positions in the party, including serving as the Kerala state unit president from January 2010 to January 2015. During his tenure as BJP state president in Kerala, the NDA’s vote share increased to 10.8% in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, reaching double digits for the first time.
Born in a Congress family in Thalassery, which is considered Communist stronghold, Muraleedharan was elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2018.
{{/usCountry}}Born in a Congress family in Thalassery, which is considered Communist stronghold, Muraleedharan was elected to the Rajya Sabha in April 2018.
{{/usCountry}}Before filing his nomination for 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he was given money for his security deposit by a group of students who had been evacuated by the Union government from Ukraine during the war with Russia.
Read more: Kerala conundrum keeps BJP on the edge
In 2019, the BJP fielded Sobha Surendran from Attingal, who received 14.43% of the votes and came in third. In 2014, S Girija Kumari was the party’s candidate and managed to get only 3.95% of the votes.
Attingal Lok Sabha constituency came into existence after the delimitation in 2008 and went to polls in the second phase on April 26 and recorded voter turnout of 69.48%.
The Lok Sabha polls for 543 seats were held in seven phases starting from April 19, with the last phase on June 1. The Bharatiya Janata Party is seeking a rare third term at the Centre with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.