Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday filed his nomination papers marking his entry into electoral politics for the second term from the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency. Mr. Tharoor filed his nomination before District Collector Biju Prabhakar, who is also the District Election Officer, around 12 noon.
A diplomat-turned-politician, Mr. Tharoor made his maiden electoral debut in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency which he won by defeating his nearest rival P. Ramachandran Nair of the Communist Party of India (CPI) by around 1 lakh votes.
Mr. Tharoor is pitted against CPI’s Bennet Abraham, who is the director of the Dr. Somervell Memorial Medical College at Karakkonam, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate O. Rajagopal, a former Union Minister, in the 2014 polls.
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Minister for Health V.S. Sivakumar; A.T. George, MLA; Thampanoor Ravi, general secretary of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC); and K. Mohan Kumar, president of the District Congress Committee; were present when Mr. Tharoor filed his nomination papers.
Kerala Socialist Party nominee Kunnukuzhi S. Mani also filed his nominations papers for Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat on Tuesday.