Will the Tharoor magic work again?

This is the question that hangs heavy on Thiruvananthapuram, perhaps the most talked about Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala after Wayanad from where Rahul Gandhi is contesting for the second time.

“Viswa Pauran” (Global Citizen) Shashi Tharoor is seeking re-election for a record fourth time from the Kerala capital.

For a final answer on the fate of the contest one has to wait till June 4, but indications are that Tharoor will sail through this time too, perhaps with a smaller margin than in 2019 when he defeated RSS ideologue Kummanom Rajashekharan by just about one lakh votes.

As the campaign progresses, Tharoor’s immediate rival seems to be the BJP’s Rajeev Chandrasekhar, though initially Pannyan Raveendran of the CPI, with his simplicity, held the upper hand. Chandrasekhar too is an outsider, the Union minister being a native of Thrissur and a Bengaluru man to boot.

The BJP decided to field Chandrasekhar quite late with the names of heavyweights such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nirmala Sitharaman and S. Jaishankar floating in the air. That way, Chandrasekhar has had a low-key start to the race.

The football-crazy CPI veteran Raveendran, 78, from Kannur, a reluctant entrant to the contest, is equally at home in Thiruvananthapuram. He holds the record as the last communist to win from this Lok Sabha constituency. That was in a 2005 by-election.

Since 2009, it has been Tharoor all the way, with the BJP runner-up in 2014 and 2019.

This scenario is unlikely to change despite six of the seven Assembly segments in this parliamentary constituency having been won by the ruling Left Democratic Front in the 2021 state elections.

When Chandrasekhar entered the fray, it was expected that he would cut into Tharoor’s constituency of the elite, urban upper-caste Hindus, upper classes and young techies.

Congress candidate for Lok Sabha polls Shashi Tharoor offers prayers at the Aruvippuram Shiva temple, in Thiruvananthapuram. PTI picture

Thiruvananthapuram hosts one of the largest IT hubs in the country and Chandrasekhar being the Union minister in charge of IT, it was thought that he could hold sway among the younger crowd. As for the elite, there is no doubt that Chandrasekhar will cut into Tharoor’s share.

But here again, Tharoor has the edge, being a “world citizen”. Right now, it looks like the upper-caste Hindus, especially the Nairs, will not desert Tharoor.

Only the other day, G. Sukumaran Nair, the “Pope of Perunna” as the Nair Service Society chief once described himself, endorsed Tharoor’s claim to be a genuine Nair of Kerala and not one of Delhi as some of Tharoor’s detractors in the community like to say teasingly.

The demeanour matters. Chandrasekhar is, unlike Tharoor, not a people’s man. He is more reserved, rather aristocratic, while Tharoor is very outgoing. He has a way with the young and suave urban crowd as well as the fisherfolk of Vizhinjam.

Between the two, Tharoor’s Malayalam seems more communicative.

Raveendran, on the other hand, is a down-to-earth man. One seldom comes across such communists even among the so-called communist leaders of the state.

In these times of globalisation and market-driven economy, Raveendran must be feeling out of tune and out of place, even to an extent out of date, in a fast-changing Thiruvananthapuram. His candidature shows the paucity of young leaders in the CPI, which is fast losing ground even in a state like Kerala.

While the BJP has a grassroot-level party network (it is the main Opposition in the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation), it is to be seen whether the workers will mobilise for Chandrasekhar the way they did for veteran O. Rajagopal in 2014 and Rajashekharan in 2019.

Then there is the RSS factor. The parent body is not on good terms with the state BJP leadership. It has also been cut up with the BJP central leadership ever since Amit Shah summarily shunted then state BJP president and RSS ideologue Rajasekharan out to Mizoram as governor in the middle of a by-election.

Compared with 2009, Tharoor has consolidated his position within the faction-driven state Congress. Despite being ridiculed and sidelined by the state leadership, which is still not much in awe of him, Tharoor has clawed his way back and now created a space for himself not only in the party but also in state politics.

At the party level, his popularity among the youth was in evidence when he decided to contest for the party’s top post defying the Gandhis. He got the biggest backing from Kerala.

And when he found that certain leaders were trying to confine him within the “Nair boundary”, Tharoor took up the cudgels and went on to visit the Muslim clergy and the Christian missions one by one on his own. He was welcomed with open arms everywhere.

As for the development of Thiruvananthapuram, Chandrasekhar can only point to Trivandrum International Airport and the Vizhinjam sea port, both Adani projects. Tharoor had the courage to defy the party and stand by the Pinarayi Vijayan government on both issues.

This has found favour with the general public, though there are apprehensions that the fishing community, a major vote bank for Tharoor, may switch allegiance this time.

But with the developments in Manipur and with the Latin Catholic Church coming out heavily against the BJP, Tharoor can be assured their support this time too. The fishing community along the Kerala coast mainly belongs to the Latin Catholic Church.

The only exception perhaps may be the Nadar community, concentrated in Kovalam and Neyyattinkara, which is said to be unhappy with Tharoor for not doing enough for the community.