Thiruvananthapuram: The BJP camp is upbeat about its candidate O.Rajagopal effecting an upset victory. Its vigour got a shot in the arm with senior BJP leader L.K. Advani also vouching for Rajagopal at a rally in Gandhinagar on Sunday where he stated that Rajagopal would open his account.
With 40 per cent of the CPM voters apparently shifting base to the BJP against LDF candidate Dr Bennet Abraham and the SNDP also openly supporting Rajagopal, it’s a matter of concern for both the UDF and the LDF camps.
Rajagopal has been contesting the Lok Sabha elections since 1984 from Manjeri and Thiruvananthapuram as well as from Nemom and Neyyatinkara assembly constituencies.
During the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, Rajagopal polled 20.93 per cent votes out of 63.18 of the total votes polled. It was during the 2004 LS elections that Rajagopal garnered the maximum number of votes, 2.28 lakh, which enabled him to get 29.86 per cent votes out of the 68.7votes polled.
According to BJP national secretary P.K. Krishnadas, this time they are expecting more than three lakh votes from the Thiruvananthapuram LS seat.
“Since it’s been a triangular contest, we expect more votes as per our poll managers’ statistics. The organizational work has been exemplary and therefore we are expecting an upset victory”, said Krishnadas.
However, Congress MLA K. Muraleedharan rejected the BJP’s claim citing that UDF’s Shashi Tharoor would win by 40,000 votes, but the BJP would definitely better its previous performance.
“However the chances of Rajagopal coming second in some of the assembly constituencies including Vattiyoorkavu are high as more than 10, 000 CPM votes here have gone in favour of Rajagopal. But now it is too early to say why votes were shifted, whether it was against the candidature of CPI’s Bennet Abraham or whether the BJP had worked in favour of M.A. Baby in Kollam or A.Sampath in Attingal can be known only later”, said Muraleedharan.
CPI candidate Bennet Abraham was hopeful of romping home and said he would surely win majority in all the seven assembly constituencies.
