Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday he is confident of retaining the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentary constituency, which has held for two terms, as he cast his vote in the third phase of polling in the Lok Sabha election across Kerala and India.
Thiruvananthapuram is witnessing an interesting and closely-watched contest as Shashi Tharoor is up against former state BJP chief and former governor of Mizoram Kummanam Rajasekharan.
The veteran BJP leader resigned from his post as Mizoram governor at the behest of the party within ten months of being appointed to the prestigious position to contest the Lok Sabha election.
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“I am very confident that I will be serving the people of Thiruvananthapuram for another five years as their MP. I believe they want me to continue raising their voice, their concerns, their hopes on the national and very necessarily international stage as I have done for ten years,” Tharoor said while speaking to reporters after casting his vote.
“And I know that the values and principles of the people of Kerala are values that are the core with me and my party. Values of pluralism, of diversity, of secularism and of inclusiveness and of social justice. We are standing for very, very clear ideas of what India is all about and what our country should be like,” he said.
Shashi Tharoor, a former diplomat, has won from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat since 2009.
{{/usCountry}}Shashi Tharoor, a former diplomat, has won from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat since 2009.
{{/usCountry}}The Congress leader also questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party’s stance on the Sabarimala temple controversy, saying it violated the model code of conduct by seeking votes over the issue.
“It has been an undercurrent for the last six weeks. The BJP has been asking for votes in the name of Lord Ayyappa with scant regard for the code of conduct. But I must say that it is a rather mysterious thing that they think they can away with it,” he said
“Because everyone knows that when you ask for votes to come to power the first thing they will do is ask that when you were in power what did you do. What did you do for the believers of Sabarimala? Did you help assuage their pain and their distress at the court verdict?” Tharoor asked.
He also urged people to vote amid the prediction of rains in the area.
“Today, I am very happy to have voted with my mother, who has braved some physical discomforts to come and cast her ballot. And we are both proudly looking forward to a good day’s polling. There is rain expected later in the day so we encourage people to come and vote,” he said.
“I must say that democracy is one of our great, great achievements here in India. We should cherish it, we should defend it, we should be proud of it.”
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had not managed to win even one of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state, with the Congress-led United Democratic Front romping home with 12 seats, while the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front had managed to win the remaining eight seats.