Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that he has served the people of Thiruvananthapuram for 15 years and he is "very confident" of winning the Lok Sabha seat again.
"I've served the people of Thiruvananthapuram for 15 years. They know me and have seen my service. It's not as if I've got anything to be ashamed of in my track record. I've been consistently available and attended to all the major issues," he said.
"It's always been a three-cornered fight here because I took the seat from the LDF. They had won it two times before me and then in the last two times, the BJP came second. So we have to take both candidates seriously. I'm very confident that I would prevail," Mr Tharoor added.
Notably, BJP has fielded Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar against Congress MP Mr Tharoor.
This is the first time that Chandrasekhar has been fielded for Lok Sabha polls. He also served as a national spokesperson of the BJP.
"This is the campaign I look forward to, the campaign I will start very shortly. I will confront the vital issues of the people of Trivandrum," Rajeev Chandrasekhar said.
Congress released its first list of candidates for 39 Lok Sabha constituencies. The names have been announced for Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshwadeep, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Telangana and Tripura.
Of the total 39 candidates announced, 16 are from Kerala, seven from Karnataka and six from Chhattisgarh, four from Telangana. Two from Meghalaya and one each from Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim and Lakshwadeep. The list was released after the party held its Central Election Committee meeting on Thursday.
The BJP has already released its first list of 195 candidates. The Lok Sabha polls are likely to be held in April-May this year.
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