Kerala Lok Sabha constituency, where Sabarimala temple is located, could see triangular fight of Christian candidates

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency, where the famed Hindu temple of Sabarimala is located, will, in all likelihood, will witness a triangular fight of three Christian candidates representing the three political fronts in Kerala in the upcoming general elections.

This became evident on Wednesday, when seven-time former legislator P.C.George was admitted into the BJP in Delhi in the presence of General Secretary in charge of state Prakash Javadekar and Union Ministers V. Muraleedharan and Rajiv Chandrasekhar.

George, in his 33 years as a legislator, represented the Poonjar constituency, which is part of the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency and hence, the BJP which is expecting to reach out to the Christian community through George, hopes with he being the local boy, it could spell credence to Javadekar’s repeated statements that this time the BJP will win a minimum 5 seats out of the state's 20.

However, this can be seen as an ardent wish as the BJP has no seat in the 140-member Assembly.

The other two Christian candidates include sitting Congress Lok Sabha member Anto Antony who has been representing this constituency since its inception in 2009. The third is none other than CPI-M veteran and two time former Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, who for the past six months has been stay put in the constituency taking part and holding numerous seminars and meetings.

Significantly, iAntony’s margin has been coming down after each election, from a victory margin of 1.11 lakh votes in 2009 to around 56,000 votes in 2014 and finally in 2019, he won with a further reduced margin of around 44,000 votes.

Likewise in each of the elections from 2009, both the CPI-M and BJP candidates have been increasing their tally of votes with the BJP candidates registering a phenomenal growth of their votes which went up from a mere 56,000 to 2.97 lakh, while the CPI-M candidates had a modest growth from 2.97 lakh to 3.36 lakh.

However the CPI-M is expecting that they will be able to repeat the 2021 Assembly polls performance in the seven assembly constituencies which comes under the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency as they won all the five seats in Pathanamathitta district and two in the Kottayam district.

The victory margin of these seven assembly constituencies comes to 73,656 votes, but Antony, who, in all likelihood, will be asked to defend his seat is confident that his voters who have seen him since 2009 will give him a handsome win.

If George is fielded by the BJP, it will in all likelihood be a triangular fight between three Christian candidates.