Thiruvananthapuram: Congress candidate Shashi Tharoor who is facing a formidable challenge from NDA’s Kummanam Rajasekharan here can heave a sigh of relief that the Thiruvananthapuram NSS taluk union has decided to support him.
Tharoor who is trying for a hatrick here has encountered opposition from the Sabarimala devotees who have ranged behind Kummanam. When the local Congress leaders realised the differences of opinion within the NSS taluk union on supporting Tharoor, they initiated damage control measures with taluk union president M. Sangeeth Kumar. The union had held namajapa rallies in front of the secretariat when the Sabarimala protest was at its height and Sangeeth Kumar was in the forefront of the agitation.
“The NSS leadership had issues with Tharoor at a personal level. But that has been settled and the local Congress leadership took efforts to ensure that all the traditional NSS votes go in favour of Tharoor. The local karayogams and vanitha samajams were briefed from Perunna on Friday,” said a senior Congress leader.
NSS general secretary Sukumaran Nair planned to convey to all the 5,600 odd karayogams across the state that the UDF will come back to power in the 2021 Assembly elections, it is learnt. The NSS has realised the BJP’s gameplan in not coming up with an ordinance on Sabarimala before the elections. However, the BJP camp is confident that Kummanam will secure the the traditional UDF votes because of the Sabarimala protest.
As per the 2011 census, Hindus constitute 66.46 percent of the total population of Thiruvananthapuram district, Christians 19.1 percent and Muslims 13.72 percent. NSS voters come to 26 percent as per the statistics provided by the BJP leadership.
Keep yourself updated on Lok Sabha Elections 2019 with our round-the-clock coverage -- breaking news, updates, analyses et all. Happy reading.
