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Congress' Lok Sabha candidate from Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala, Shashi Tharoor, on Wednesday accused the BJP of hijacking democracy and urged other political parties to fight together to defeat it in the coming general election.
"One party (the BJP) is trying to hijack democracy. We should stand together against this. We should fight together to defeat the BJP," Tharoor told reporters here. He argued that the BJP cannot repeat the same performance as in the 2019 general election when it won 303 seats and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by it, won 353 seats. "INDIA alliance should get 20 seats in Kerala. The BJP cannot repeat its victory from the last election; they know it. Congress will win in Karnataka, Telangana, and in the Hindi belt as well," Tharoor said. Though the Left parties are part of the INDIA alliance, in Kerala, the Left and the Congress are contesting each other. For the 2024 Lok Sabha election, both the BJP and the Left have put up strong candidates against Tharoor in the Thiruvananthapuram constituency, where he won three times consecutively. While the BJP fielded Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar against Tharoor, the Left fielded senior CPI leader Pannyan Raveendran, who represented the constituency in the 14th Lok Sabha. With the senior leaders in the fray, the constituency is set to see a strong triangular contest this time. Kerala's 20 Lok Sabha constituencies will go to polls on April 26. (ANI)
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